


Ornate Words For

by CadyWimzie



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Conversations, Crack Treated Seriously, Flashbacks, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Kayfabe Compliant, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Indulgent, Sort Of, Tickling, Time Skips, Title Subject to Change, Wrestling, in chronological order but each chapter is pretty standalone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2019-10-15 04:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17521973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadyWimzie/pseuds/CadyWimzie
Summary: Dean was scheming. Sethknewhe was. Yet, he wasn't dreading what would come of it. It wasn't a drastic leap to say he was looking forward to it, actually. He loved this game as much as the next Hound did, even if he pretended like he didn't sometimes."Roman— he knocked me down to like... eighty percent battery?" He pointed at Seth with one finger, either not noticing or ignoring the tiny smile that showed up on Roman's face and continuing to deliver the statement completely deadpan. "You're still at a hundred, so... we're not on par no more."A beat of silence followed. Seth licked his lips and glanced from one brother to the other, knowing all too well that there was no way out for him. The least he could do was stick a quip or two before his grisly end came."Maybe you can learn a little somethin'," he said, deciding with finalizing certainty that he didn't fear death.





	1. Phonetical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work has an official first chapter now! Much shorter than chapter 2. I may or may not make a pattern out of it, and have chapter 3 be kinda short again and then have chapter 4 be sorta long and so on? I dunno.
> 
> Edit: This chapter was posted on 4/30/19, but I've since messed around with it just a little (7/20/19); changed the wording in places and took out/added things to my liking, but same exact gist. I apologize for changing things on anybody, even if it is slight!

"All right, gimme a word. Convey somethin' to me with all you know."

Dean scoffed and pinched his chin, crouched thoughtfully on the tar floor next to Seth in spite of his  _sheer_  unwillingness. "This is a stupid game, man. Boring."

Although it wasn't like they had much else to do. Their match wasn't for another hour, and they already got a nice warmup in. Amped up and warm, but not fatigued. Ready to run; ready to wrestle the entire Raw locker room and _win_ (seeing as, an attempt like that would likely lead to running). It was probably why doing anything else besides those things during the wait made Dean sigh and shake his head.

They were shoved into an echoey stairwell and told to wait there, with primed bodies ready to work and minds just as sharp to match. All they had to entertain themselves with was the dumb notions they brought up to the empty air shared between the three of them.

Dean made a face contorted by scrutiny.

"Tango," he said finally. It helped that somewhere in the ruckus, noisy building, tango music had started playing, jogging his memory.

"All right." Seth tilted his head back against the brick wall, waiting for the next addition.

The next one was easy: "India."

"Uh, all right." He had honestly expected an H or an A. He supposed he was foolish to think Dean Ambrose would ever go a conventional route, but now he was getting curious.

"Charlie."

"Dean, what in the world are you spelling?"

Dean left a pregnant pause (only there, in all actuality, because he  _forgot_  the word for the letter he wanted) before continuing, with more intensity in his eyes than what had accompanied the first letter even though his voice was less sure, "Kilo."

Seth stared confusedly at the opposite wall, hands clasped together behind his back and brown eyes squinty. He saw Dean open his mouth to slap another letter on out of the corner of his vision, which was milliseconds before a streak of white fabric barreled in front of it; movement paired with a familiar roar from their third teammate, and a  _whoosh!_  of wind to couple with the impossibly quick action.

For half a second, Seth thought Roman _s_ _peared_  their middle brother— clean through his abdomen, possibly cracking a rib from the initial impact or sending him brokenly rolling down the nearby set of stairs, or  _both—_  but visual evidence and the unaffected trust that Roman would  _never_ do that to Dean intentionally or with ill-will nixed that idea.

He brought Dean down to the hard floor with a sloppy tackle instead, dragging him by fistfuls of fabric more than anything else. He had Dean to land on, and Dean had his unvelcroed vest. No cracked ribs today.

After a brief struggle on the ground that Seth could just barely see behind Roman's back and elbows, Dean's loud, gruff laughter bounced around the stairwell all of a sudden, broken up by an occasional, unintelligible yelp or, just once, the guttural snarl of, " _Traitor_!" before falling back into ridiculous, goofy mirth and an almost unrestrained amount of squirming as a few choice sensitive spots on his torso were repetitively poked and scribbled on— and, oh right,  _tickled_ — by his teammate's sneaky hands.

"Lima. Echo," Seth finished, in newfound realization that had him huffing out a warm chuckle. "I get it now. You boys think you're sly or somethin'?"

" _He_ thought he was," Roman answered, in referral to Ambrose, who was still pinned beneath him and in  _stitches_. He took it as an incentive to continue the onslaught, sliding his hands down from his brother's ribs and scratching at his sides instead, mid forearm-deep inside the hole the opened flaps of vest made. He vied under the thin, white tank top Dean wore beneath the clunky gear while he was at it and scrabbled over his bare skin. Dean wheezed.

"You're torturing him, bro. No flesh and blood man could survive that." Seth crossed his arms and didn't move off the spot, enjoying the view. Dean's hands were latched onto Roman's wrists, trying to gain some semblance of control over the movements he couldn't predict and curling against the touching whenever it ventured higher; snapping an elbow to his side to protect an armpit or fruitlessly trying to mold his entire body around the fingers pressing into his rib cage.

"Naaahaha— tricked meheehee! S'posed ta get  _him_ , Romahahan; nah'me!"

Seth's eyebrows shot up at the information. "Oh, is that true?"

Roman didn't look up from what he was doing in case Dean writhed away, or, more importantly, tumbled down the stairs and hurt himself. "I just used your name for the sake of ambush, man. It's fine."

"I dunno, pal. The fact that you entertained the idea at all kinda pisses me off."

"Then  _do somethin' about it_!" Dean snapped, in a harsh voice that didn't match the involuntary grin on his lips. Though it was hard to tell whether the anger was genuine or not through the gasps of laughter, his brothers knew he would have been trying  _much_ harder to escape if he really wasn't enjoying the treatment, and Roman wasn't restraining him much— if at all— aside from making sure he didn't slither down the stairs in his body's reflexive efforts to pull away.

Seth knew they couldn't goof forever, though.

"All right, man, lay off my tag partner; you're not even steppin' through the ropes tonight." He stepped closer and hovered over them both, giving Roman a firm tap on the back. "I don't wanna exhaust my whole arsenal try'na get you to stop tickling our brother, Roman. What are we— five?"

Even as he said it, he smiled; the reprimanding meaning absolutely nothing coming from him. He hardly believed in it himself. It was so much simpler than exhausting a whole arsenal... and Seth could barely  _conceive_  the idea of stomping Roman's head into the floor. God no.

What Seth had in mind was much,  _much_  easier than that. Made especially so by the logic that Roman was wearing the same exact getup Dean was— and he had  _yet_  to don his vest over the thin tank. Fire with fire.

"All right, cool, we're doin' this." Seth didn't ask again and didn't wait for Roman to comply on a belated whim. His hands immediately went for his older brother's sides through the loose fabric, deftly scratching and pinching everywhere that had a fair chance at being ticklish between his underarms and hips until the attack on Dean ground to a hasty halt and Roman ducked Seth's hands with a chuckle, falling aside. Seth was far from satisfied and dropped to his knees beside him, grinning impishly.

"Seth, I beg of you— no!" The exclamation wasn't entirely accurate, since Dean sprung up and joined the effort  _alongside_  Seth's persistent, teasing pokes and prods at their third man's stomach; glomming onto Roman's shoulders in a faux hug that nearly knocked him over and tickling the back of his neck, right on his hairline.

"Eeehehe no no, don't! _Dean_!" Roman frantically wormed out of the hold, pushing Dean away with a certain stint in his strength that little else could bring out. He backed up for the wall beneath the railing, and didn't see how close he was to the top of the stairs until it was too late. It ripped a gasp out of Seth.

"Whoa! Hey. Careful."

Of course, they didn't let him tumble one step down the flight before they reeled him back in by an arm and a handful of pants fabric. Roman quickly crawled between them once they let go, giving them each a grateful pat on the head once he was safely seated on the landing.

Seth tsked. "Okay, all right,  _s_ _eriously_ , guys, we gotta stop. We're lucky nobody's walked in on us yet. You wanna explain this crap?"

"I'd dare you." Dean rose a hand to the younger's forehead and gave it a derisive little push, smirking.

"Yeah, right." Seth swiped his hand off. "You wouldn't know what to say, either."

"No, I wouldn't. I do know one thing for sure, though."

"What's that?"

Dean was scheming. Seth  _knew_ he was. Yet, he wasn't dreading what would come of it. It wasn't a drastic leap to say he was looking forward to it, actually. He loved this game as much as the next Hound did, even if he pretended like he didn't sometimes.

"Roman— he knocked me down to like... eighty percent battery?" He pointed at Seth with one finger, either not noticing or ignoring the tiny smile that showed up on Roman's face and continuing to deliver the statement completely deadpan. "You're still at a hundred, so... we're not on par no more."

A beat of silence followed. Seth licked his lips and glanced from one brother to the other, knowing all too well that there was no way out for him. The least he could do was stick a quip or two before his grisly end came.

"Maybe you can learn a little somethin'," he said, deciding with finalizing certainty that he didn't fear death.

Dean's eye twitched. Within the next frame of movement he completely filled Seth's field of sight, arms snaring his waist and fingers navigating grooves and blockages and flaps, mercilessly digging into taut muscles once they were located and causing Seth to crumble— as well as incessantly giggle his head off— instantly.

"Might as well even the stats," Roman said. He pressed Seth's thighs into the floor by laying down on them, and twisted in the position, tickling behind his knees and  _down his goddamn_ _ **calves**_  if only to make matters worse.

Seth screamed and swore and laughed as they held him down and took him apart.

He had little interest in being anywhere else.


	2. Juxtaposed

It was solely because of the utter fatigue caused by the events of the previous night that Seth was able to sleep at all. The aches and pains didn't reach him until his head lifted off the pillow and his body moved unconsciously, arranging itself more comfortably.

The pair of broad shoulders leaning against the side of the mattress rolled— perhaps reflexively. Dean was sitting on the floor, occupying his time doing absolutely nothing as far as Seth could tell. The older man turned his head to the side so Seth could only see his right eye, characteristically half-lidded as usual. He didn't initiate conversation; Seth knew him well enough to know he barely ever did.

Why strain the vocal cords on a morning like this? Maybe now wasn't the  _time_  for talk. Seth didn't pride himself on a decent memory, but he knew what day it was.

It was  _the_ day. It was the day he knew was coming for a while now.

How surreal to have Ambrose sitting right there beside him, when Seth knew for a fact that the way the day was getting started would pale in comparison to the way the day was going to end. His two partners were none the wiser.

Seth knew he was in the clear. But the plan wouldn't be set into motion for hours, and so a small part of him wished the deed was already done. He wished he was already sleeping in an entirely  _different_ hotel room, fast forwarded to Tuesday where all that was left to do was explain his actions.

Maybe that was the fatigue talking again. Regardless of his feelings, he needed to see today out. He needed to see it out fully.

"Dean, my man. Where's Roman at?" He rose on earnestly shaky forearms, propping himself up to lean against the headboard and look down at his brother. That  _was_  still the status of things, for another thirteen— _twelve_  hours. Okay.

"Out getting ice." Dean sounded wide awake. More so than Seth could say about himself.

"Oh, that's solid."

"Mhm."

Seth pushed off from the headboard and reached, laying a hand atop the shoulder closest to him. "You sore?"

To accentuate the question, he started massaging the general area rather aimlessly, honing in primarily on the base of his teammate's neck. Knowing good and well that had it been anyone else doing this to him (aside from Roman), there was a fair chance Dean would have already taken off a hand.

"Whattaya think the ice is for?" Despite the sheer dullness of his words, Dean was leaning into the touch very avidly, the tendons in his neck appearing momentarily when he moved and then sinking back down again out of sight. A smile twitched his lips, and although Seth could clearly see it, he could tell it wasn't formed  _entirely_  from his efforts.

"We made  _no man_ our friend yesterday," the dude drawled, voice lilted happily. Seth smiled and moved his hand up, tousling the curly, light brown hair above that tense shoulder. "We made some  _enemies_. I think that third steel chair Hunter used on me had a personal vendetta of some kind."

"Yeah, all right," Seth replied, eyes rolling dubiously, "whatever you think."

He finally took his hand away once he realized he was doing little more than rubbing his partner's head. Dean was silent; uninterested in continuing the conversation, or perhaps disappointed but not saying so. His neck straightened out once his head wasn't leaning into the gentle touching anymore. Seth eventually sat up and scooted past him, swinging his legs down to dangle off the side.

"Meanwhile, The Shield's got no competition," he carried on, face in his hands and fingers removing sand from his eyes. Not really knowing  _why_ he was pointing this fact out to Dean, because it made very little sense to do so. It also felt wrong  _not_ to.

"Huh. Must be a testament to something," Dean replied. He sounded so optimistic. "Now that all the walls are down, we can finally have run of the place. Rule over both rosters with an iron fist."

_Oh?_

Seth couldn't figure out if Dean was being serious or not. After the past few weeks they had had, it was hard to tell— not  _where_  they stood, but where they, personally,  _felt_  they stood.

 _Were we gonna dole out justice or punishment after Payback? Did_ I  _even decide?_

Thinking about it got him slightly miffed;  _Dean_ wasn't the one who was supposed to be doing even  _half_  the perturbing in this discussion that he was. Why did he continually insist on being so difficult to read? Even in pajamas, with  _bedhead_ , the guy refused to stop. Seth couldn't see through him if he used  _equipment_ , and oh, boy, was it frustrating.

"But to do that, we gotta go through the motions a lil' bit," continued Dean, ever chill about the whole conversation and its contents. "Won't be boring; I just mean practice. Exercise. New ideas, if we got any. I was just tellin' Roman the other day about this... concept for a new thing." The brief pause was filled in with a yawn. Seth almost opted out of listening before he caught onto the last five words, and uncovered his face completely to look down attentively at his teammate.

"A new addition to your arsenal, you say?"

"Uh-huh. Shoddy pain-inflicter righ' now; I'll work on it. Meant to wear guys down. It doesn't really have any supports, though. I'd demonstrate it on you, but 'm'tired."

"You don't sound tired," said Seth, disconcertingly.

"I always sound one way." Dean drew his sweatpants-clad knees up to his chest and dusted one of them off absentmindedly. He looked directly upwards at Seth when the younger man tsked and tossed up his right hand, half feigning the disappointment he expressed.

"Well  _now_ you got me all curious, Ambrose."  _And concerned. This isn't information you'll be too keen on favoring me with tomorrow._ "I'm sure I'll get the general idea, tired or not tired. What part of me do you need me to lend?"

"You don't gotta move." In short order he was slinging his left arm over Seth's shin, grasping weakly at his ankle with the same hand. Seth began to understand what he meant about being too tired to do anything exemplary by that point, but, still, he followed along, blindly observing where Dean's touch went and what it did.

It didn't seem to do much. He felt his bare foot get grabbed, and kept it patiently still as Dean tried to figure out his angling. He resisted jumping out of his skin— surprising himself more than anyone— when the older gave his toes a squeeze.

"...Dean, this isn't a pain-inflicter. You're not inflicting anything, except-" His words halted in their tracks and caved to silence, him wincing harshly at the feeling of two toes being sought between and wrenched apart, startling the crap out of him.

_Right_ _._ _Okay. Dean's busy being himself again._

The thing was, it didn't... hurt. Seth could easily imagine the potential for it to, but Dean wasn't trying to beat him in a grueling fight right now; he was trying to show him the way his toes would be contorted if he ever crossed him, probably (which was, as a matter of fact, very good insight), without applying an ounce of the actual pain to it. Not making it real. The  _real thing_  was for their foes.

This was the same dude who wasn't above biting adversaries to get a neck up in a match, after all— despite a majority of his decisions in the ring being more technically inclined. He certainly wasn't  _all_ flailing limbs and scary unpredictability.

"So, it's a  _wrench_ , really, when ya... think long 'n hard..." Dean's voice trailed off, and was followed by a slight grunt. Seth couldn't see past him, and so stiffened when he found his teammate had moved up and was now doing it again to two  _more_  toes. Except, this time, it was quicker, and far less gentle.

It wouldn't have passed Seth's tolerance threshold for another mile if not for the way the older's pinky and ring finger scratched over the ball of his foot unexpectedly. Making him wince for an entirely  _different_  reason.

Seth's lungs suddenly felt warmer. His chest shook at the beginning of a recognizable convulsion he didn't let happen, and his hand shot out before he could stop it, striking the back of Dean's shoulder rather hard in the clumsy process of grabbing hold of it.

"Okay, I like. It's ambitious. It's got character."

Dean shrugged his hand off, most likely perplexed by the none-too-casual cuff he received. His tone didn't match the action that could have passed for an indicator of annoyance: "Did I go too rough? I didn't mean to." A break. "Or maybe I did. I dunno. Either way, 'm'sorry."

"Pfft, no," Seth answered through a budding smile, finding some humor in where he suddenly thought to take the conversation. "I didn't mean to hit so rough. It's a work in progress anyways, right? I dunno how you're planning on improving it, but I'm sure you will. As it stands right now, pal, I'm sorry; at its worst, it kinda tickles. So it's... got  _that_."

It was said like a taunt, because he didn't know how else to say it. In that, 'yeah, it tickled; that's how little it hurt' kind of way. So of course he was busting Dean's stones and telling him the truth all at the same time. That was oftentimes how The Shield relayed any information to each other that had a shred of clarity. Seth knew he wouldn't have this "language" for much longer, so that was all the more reason to use it, right?

The only problem to arise from this was that Dean knew this language, and Seth, well.

Far too well.

"Oh." The older man tilted his head back against the hotel bed mattress, taking in what Seth had said in thoughtful quiet. He was still facing away, offering no tip-offs to the expression he wore. "Well, that's... not what I wanted."

He released Seth's foot and pushed off from the floor, rising to two of his own. Seth watched him as he stretched, carrying on through a drowsily-slurred inflection marked by another disruptive yawn, "I didn't want that. That wasn't what I was going for."

"It's fine. You'll get over it." The transfer Seth's eyes made from Dean's back to the window pane half obstructed by orange curtains was done through a roll, finding that Dean's dramatics were dragging the conversation down by a lot now.

"Well all I'm saying is that I'm glad it never left the cutting room floor, 'cause that'd never be my intent," Dean painstakingly explained, finally turning around to look down and meet Seth's eyes. He found them to be openly glaring at him.

"...for our opponents," he then went and finished the sentence, ignoring the dirty look he was being given.

Said dirty look on Seth's face was wavering. "For-"

 _"They_ don't get off easy. Yeah.  _You_ , though... I've got no plans to harm a hair."

Before he had even finished speaking, Seth moved to get up; spurred by a burst of wariness. Dean flashed down and seized his legs before he was fully standing on them, tripping him on his upright and making him fall forward.

Knees and hands hitting down first, an incensed sigh escaped Seth as his brother's arms coiled tight around his midsection. The added weight on his back caused his tired body to flop over, leading him into the half-roll that he would have initially gone for to remove Dean from his person anyway— in addition to using his hands to pry apart Dean's.

Instead of this happening, he felt what he was pretty sure was Dean repeatedly ramming his head into the center of his upper back. The man's right arm was trapped between the carpet and his current "opponent", to be fair. The lower portion of his body was in the air and the upper was constricting Seth like a snake.

" _Ugh_ , dude. You seriously expecting me to tussle right now? Like this?"

"No, I want you to remain completely relaxed." His chin landed on Seth's shoulder, burrowing almost painfully into it. Seth hastily threw out the idea that it was his chin when he felt wetness seeping through, and recognized the shape of the pressure to be the older's teeth through the thin barrier of shirt— not by any means biting him; only pressing gently. Still spitting up his shirt, though.

"Gross, Dean, but not intolerable." He jabbed back an elbow anyway, putting an early stopper on it by catching Dean in the ribs, presumably. The action wasn't compatible with the unruly grin on his lips, brought about by Dean's incapability to just stay still and do nothing for a few hours and  _not_ mock gnaw on the people he cared about. Was it too much to ask for?

"I'll give you 'intolerable'," Dean gritted out, around bared teeth that may or may not have been clenched down on the seam of Seth's sleeve. Seth felt the smallest spike of flighty trepidation at the words, but no amount of furious wiggling to get free could help him on this one. The tactic was pretty brainless anyway, and properly scuffling on  _im_ proper hotel room carpet and not a mat didn't feel right. He didn't have a hope of fighting anybody here. ( _Dean_ had a hope of fighting anybody  _anywhere_.)

Dean's left arm that  _wasn't_ trapped started to lift away from holding Seth in place, and the latter thought the former was receding off of him, or at the very least getting ready to change his position. But no. No, no,  _no no gAH stop!_

"Nah- naHAhaha! Shit! No no  _don'tyoudareDean_! Don't!"

He couldn't say he was completely surprised, or even that the roughly administered scratching that dug away under his arm was unwarranted necessarily. Dean decided not to linger in that one very precise spot that was not only restricting Seth from using his arm but also making him laugh too much to form words, and raked his fingers down lightning fast over shirt and skin to poke around his teammate's clenched side instead.

It tickled  _worse_ , which said quite a bit about how well this guy knew him. The let-up did allow Seth to push up on wobbly arms and worm away, freeing Dean's arm from between his body and the floor.

Maybe not the  _greatest_  decision (even for the blatant lack of a choice), because Dean was now in full-blown play mode and quick to pounce after him. Seth managed to stop, sit up straight, and throw back a cautionary forearm, wincing somewhat when he felt it connect hard with his brother's cheekbone.

The briefest of pauses followed, but the damage done was minimal, because without sensation-based warning Dean's hands were suddenly all over his stomach, warming it with scrabbling fingers and making Seth cackle breathlessly. Doubled over trying to fit his own two hands between himself and the shocking, jolting nudges Dean was seemingly trying to bury under his skin— in the most ticklish way known to man, as far as Seth was concerned.

"That  _hurt_. The fuck, Seth?"

The question produced a sincere, humored laugh amidst the tickle-induced one. Dean chuckled and moved his hands to a different spot that wasn't so strenuous on the abdominal muscles he knew were too exhausted to deal. He was somehow managing to avoid all the  _bruised_  spots, which could only have been achievable through some pretty impeccable memory on his part— not that Seth was thanking him.

Seth deemed it time to escape.  _Re_ _ally_  escape. He powered up and alleviated the assault by a bit. The fingertips gliding off over his ribs from behind and far below still had yet to give up, even though Seth was basically standing. They had to get those last few digs in.

"You'd think I'd get tired of this, but nah," Dean commented.

Notably, he was making no move to restrain Seth once over again. Just reaching; prodding and teasing for the remaining moments he had the upper hand. The uninhibited, intentional attack had Seth falling to pieces that weren't nearly as achy, and Dean obviously knew before he started that this would be the end result.

Seth flinched up and away from his hands, still sputtering out chuckles and actively guarding to make sure they didn't sneak back under his arms. He backed up a few steps to create distance and then dropped to his knees again closer to the foot of the bed, getting his breath back.

Both men were knelt on the floor, much more awake than either of them cared to admit now.

"Piece'a shhhit," Seth mumbled. He swiveled so his back wasn't to the mischievous grin Dean had on.

Every sense being on high alert, he recognized the look right away and knew to duck down... for nothing, as it turned out.

A befuddled, "Seth, wait-" left Dean's smiling mouth before he was absolutely  _bashed_ into and plowed over by an incredibly short-range tackle, pushing the air out of him and knocking him onto his back.

The older laughed behind a closed mouth and made a grab for Seth's wrist, but his grip wasn't strong enough in the moment; merely grazing it as it breezed by. Dropping hint of just how much strength and skill he was keeping sheathed to be used for later fights that weren't as silly as this one was. He always did have a soft spot for this sort of thing.

"Don't be mad," he implored, even though there was not a single scrap of remorse in his eyes. When Seth didn't respond— only continued to stare hard at him— he shrugged his shoulders up, flippant. "Can't I indulge? Lemme tickle fight with someone I know I can beat."

"Dean, what kind'a grouch do you take me for?" Seth did away with his menacing poise; took the weight of his body off his knees to sit by his supine teammate's legs after getting off of him. Though he spoke without a stutter, his voice wavered, making it sound like he was prone to start laughing again at a random moment's notice: "'Specially when we're so clear on the rules. You know the rules, don'tchu?"

"Are none?" Dean tried, pushing himself up with his elbows. Truly confident and unbothered in the face of incoming consequences. Seth had to admit he admired it.

"You're on the right track, but I was thinkin' more along the lines of, 'it isn't a tickle fight unless all participants suffer their fair share.'" He said it like he was reciting it out of a book. Dean rolled his eyes and let his head fall back against the carpet. Seth smiled deviously and added, in an eerily casual voice, "Especially if the guy who started it is even moreticklish than the guy he chose to target."

Even though the statement was basically  _affirmation_ that he was in trouble, Dean didn't move. He had no uneasiness about him. He crossed his broad arms and tilted his head down, blue eyes firmly pinned on the younger man.

"It isn't how well you fare, Seth; it's the traumatic memories you make that last a lifetime."

The oddly placed dash of wisdom had Seth rocking back on the spot, humming in acknowledgment to it and diverting his gaze to feign some heavy thought on the matter.

Even _faking it_  was boring.

"Duly noted," he said, before picking up and falling back down halfway and horizontally across Ambrose's chest, hands clutching to and pinching at t-shirt fabric all around the spot he was perched on; scratching his nails wildly into every warmly guarded crevice and smooth plane of upper body he knew would incite embarrassing sounds.

Muscles flinched beneath his playful mussing, and a forcibly rough, affected laugh shook the scrapper's frame as he fidgeted and lamely guarded with his arms. Having no clue  _where_ he was going to be attacked next with Seth's body in the way, so the blocking wasn't the least bit helpful.

"Ahahah! Looord!  _A_ _ll right_ , all right, I promise I'm not havin' any fun," Dean chuckled out, shifting restlessly underneath him. "Stop. Se _hehe_ th!" His knees shot up and his hands sluggishly pawed at the ones that left his shirt and turned their relentless tickling on the bare skin of his jawline instead, making his grin widen and his shoulder shrug up protectively on one side.

Seth had to maneuver himself in a way where his elbow wasn't digging uncomfortably into Dean, and that...  _that_  was the detail that brought him back, finally, because what in the world was he doing?

Twelve hours was a lot of time to make it out like nothing backwards was going on. He could do whatever he wanted before that time was up and none of it would matter in the grand scheme of things.

Even still, this felt like a step back. Ironically making sure he wasn't unintentionally hurting Dean on the same day he was literally planning on hurting him obviously wouldn't make Seth  _feel_  good, no matter how strategically thought out said day's plans were.

"Right," he said, so quietly that Dean didn't even hear it, apparently; the man was grinning into the carpet from the way he turned his head in a vain attempt to protect the underside of his chin, shoulders still twitching with unshy mirth.

Seth did feel bad, but it wasn't  _guilt_ , per se. He couldn't describe it. He couldn't even put his finger on it, for starters.

He retreated off his broth— his  _partner_ , suddenly wrapped up in a jumbled swathe of thoughts that continued to say very few nice things about him, if any. He had enough good sense to trail his hand off Dean's neck and move it down to his chest without lifting it, to simulate an ending to the attack without too noticeable of a seam that would make it feel abrupt... as sincerely abrupt as Seth's diminished interest in fooling around with him had been.

He only came to the bitter realization that he dissociated when he felt Dean sweep his half-rubbing, half-patting hand off his chest, still chuckling lightly.

"Seth's beat," Seth heard him say, puzzling him enough to find cause for refocusing and looking up from his lap. He noticed right away that the older wasn't looking at him anymore. Rather, he was looking over his  _shoulder_.

Seth turned and visibly started at the sight of Roman, who was standing behind the small kitchen island near the door with his elbows propped on the counter, smiling at them.

Dean's voice carried on airily, "Roman, maybe I broke him. You think?"

"What makes you think I can answer that? I just got here." Their eldest was rubbing at his eyelid with his thumb while he spoke, in a way he probably thought looked noncommittal. It really came off looking like the opposite of that, though. After a few seconds worth of a pause, he added, "Anybody who's gotta hear that laugh for longer than a minute probably needs counseling, yes. Now that you mention it."

The jab he took drew another laugh out of Dean, in spite of the mean joke's source. He knew Roman wasn't being serious.

Just as soon, one of his hands was waving in front of Seth's face, accompanied by a brusque, "Seth... Seth!" that made the latter shake his head. The fog cleared.

"Yeah, I'm- I'mma..." He rubbed at his temple and blinked a few times. "Coffee. 'S'all I need. I need coffee."

"I got coffee," Roman informed him, turning away as he did to do something on the adjacent counter that elicited the rustling of a paper bag. Dean jumped to his feet and passed Seth on the way over, giving him his own version of a hair tousle while he was still sitting on the floor.

Seth nodded to himself and got up, brushing off imaginary dust and smoothing the hair Dean's fingers scrunched. He quietly sidled up to the counter and leaned on it as Roman placed the three drinks down, staring off into space.

"Thanks," he said, meaning it.

Reigns didn't acknowledge the expressed gratitude and merely simpered at him. "You giving Dean a hard time?"

"He gave me a hard time first," he defended himself, with not a trace of harshness to interfere with the real smile that was returning to his lips. Ambrose fake-gasped, but he ignored it. "When'd you start backing Dean? Nah— if you were here at the time, you would've been down there with us, making matters worse. I know you."

Roman drug his cup up to his chest but kept his hand over the lid, still unceasing to prove he was way more interested in the conclusively goofy conversation than he was with the confections he brought. He made an iffy expression and answered, "I've been here... like four minutes, maybe? I didn't wanna say anything."

"I knew it," Dean piped up over by the door, arms tactically wrapped around the hefty bag of ice Roman left there. "I sensed your presence."

"Why  _didn't_ you say anything?" Seth asked, more or less neutrally. Then his face soured. "And thanks for the help. How much did you see again?"

"He didn't wanna get caught in the middle of the war. Calling it," Dean said, assuredly. He walked back up to them wiping his wet arms and hands off on his clothes. He snatched his drink off the counter and raised his eyebrows at Roman over the visibly sneaky sip he took.

"Walked in about..." His index finger tapped the counter top as he thought a moment. "You just shook Dean, 'n then you laid him out, right? Good job on that one."

"I mean, if you wanna call what he did-" Roman gave Dean a gentle kick to the shin that hushed him... for a time. Dean threw his elbows up atop the wide counter space as well by that point, eyes averting as the older continued with what he was going to say.

"Then, you know." His hand slid across the way, running it into Seth's forearm. "You needed coffee."

"So why didn-"

"I didn't say anything 'cause... ah. That's hard. I know I could've interrupted, or fanned the fire and made things even worse for _one of you_." He tilted his head in Dean's direction when he said it, unbeknownst to the latter, who was squinting his eyes at something on the floor and paying no mind. "But... nah. You two've got this chaotic  _energy_  surrounding you both sometimes; in your own, shared little world. Nobody can touch either of you when you're there."

The long-winded explanation had Seth chuckling apprehensively, and left him unable to come up with any other form of verbal retaliation except for more comedic jibes.

"That sure sounds like a fancy way of saying you were too afraid to get involved in the type of fight we were having, Roman."

"No doubts in my mind," Dean agreed with him, just before reaching across the counter edge and skittering his nails up the normally-very-stoic man's side, with nary a shift in posture or facial expression.

Roman wasn't any different, because all the touch made him do was look down at Dean's hand and raise an eyebrow. Dean immediately retracted the hand.

"Start doubting," advised Roman. A wry smile jumped to Dean's face as he watched him turn away from the island and bring his coffee over to the counter with the bag on it, resuming with what he had evidently planned to do in sticking his hand inside it to pull more things out. It brought the talk the three of them were having to a standstill.

As the two milled in front of him, Seth's mind went back to wandering. He kept his partners in his periphery as he glanced down, clenching the hand that wasn't wrapped tightly around the cup into a fist. It felt to him like there was a rock sitting in his stomach; any analogy that meant he felt heavier than he was, he would take it.

"You know," he began, shifting his weight as he ambled on the spot, "Dean 'n me— maybe we're a little toodifferent. I mean, accounting for..." He locked his fingers in front of him, conveying with his hands before the words came to him. Entirely oblivious to what was going on in front of him by this point. "Uh, juxtaposition... The way we're..."

"Aa _aAH_! DEAN!"

He trailed off, realizing belatedly that neither of his partners were listening to him— least of all Dean, who had snuck up behind Roman during the lull and satisfied his own persistence by landing a ten-fingered squeeze to the bigger man's ribs, effectively startling him this time. About six of those tiny, sealed cups holding cream fell to the floor, and the bag fell over onto its side.

"I guess I'll just... start doubting!" exclaimed Dean, refusing to break contact now that he had started. Not even when his brother's arms hastily returned to their respective sides to offer protection, pushing against the tickling.

"Shutup," Roman pressed out in a single breath, grinning and twisting to evade. Irrationally trying to convince  _someone_ that this was just a fluke and he didn't actually have any weak spots— though that someone definitely wasn't Dean. An unthwarted whine of a noise that  _kind of_  sounded like a laugh slipped out, but by that point he was able to catch Dean's hands and stop him. "Wasn't an invitation!"

Dean got his hands back and smirked as he cleared off, holding them up in surrender as he loudly replied, "Would you have  _told me_ if it was? What'd you expect me to do?"

The look on Roman's face was anything but strict as he pointed an accusatory finger at him, smiling through his nonetheless perfect rendition of the Big Brother Voice he was getting down pat: " **Stop**. I'm not saying it again."

"I mean, you probably will."

"I'd better not."

That was where the exchange was left, mostly. Seth pulled up a chair to settle down in as the fallen items on the floor were recovered, and added to coffee that none of them had really noticed needed the doctoring until they started paying closer attention to it rather than each other— for the first time so far that day.

The topic shifted more than a few times, but never strayed far from the underlying note of playfulness. For being so adamant about the tickling stuff ending and not being dredged back up, Roman wasn't above poking Dean in the side a time or two after that. Small nudges. Because he knew it made Dean smile, or because he wanted to let him know he wasn't actually mad at him, or because the silliness was infectious. It could have been any of them, or all three.

They had every right to be in good moods, after all. They were a winning combination.

Seth reflected on it halfway through his coffee; mind sharpening and body regaining a masterful coordination he lacked a large part of when he was down on the floor in the middle of a lazy roughhousing session with Ambrose. A moment he got a little too emotionally absorbed in, maybe.

If  _they_ , of all people presently in his way on the road to a majorly successful career, could be happy right now, he most definitely could be as well. In an award-winning team that gained more than it could ever lose, on top of the world, fresh off a pay-per-view win and excited about what was next?

Seth was  _damn_ happy. He was friggin' ecstatic.

And after everything was said and done in the closing hours of RAW, with ties cut and new opportunities available to him,  _who said he ever needed to stop being?_


	3. Momentous

Roman's walk through the hall to get to the hotel room he just checked into was a quiet one. He was more accustomed to getting his ear talked off on the way there; how much  _fuller_ a long, narrow room felt when all that was added was two other people. No more and no less.

He could walk through a round, crowded stadium that could fit more people than this entire building was capable, and it wouldn't feel nearly as full to him as a silent hall with just the right people.

His room for the next three days was as silent as the halls were. He let the bag he had slung over his shoulder and hanging down his back drop to the carpet beside the bed, and released the handle on his suitcase rolling low behind him, sitting down on the mattress edge with his forehead supported by his fingertips.

He quit that and whipped out his phone to check the time, even though he knew he'd be checking it at least four more times because he wasn't paying a lick of attention.

Silence didn't exist to just be...  _silence._

He wasn't in the best state of mind right now. He had a telltale lack of a smile on his face, which probably wouldn't have looked so off to anybody— anybody who knew him  _well_ , even; he wasn't a big smiler.

He didn't know where Dean was. He didn't know where his brother was. Simply that. It was an unusual and scary thing, and there was nothing he could do to fix how imbalanced and worried he felt without coming across like a person who wasn't completely sane. Someone who didn't let the people he loved do their own thing. He  _really_ didn't want to be that.

It wasn't unreturned calls or a solid suspicion that something was wrong. He and Dean  _agreed_  to split up and not grace one another with updates that were just short of moment-to-moment. They  _agreed_  to stay in separate places. Things had been that way for about a week now, and with Money in the Bank just around the corner, it was becoming apparent to them that they couldn't just stay the same. They couldn't stay in the past where good things had gotten painfully branded over— by a chair shot to the back that Roman could still feel.

A trip to the gym more recently really hammered home this point and may have entirely set it all into motion, knowingly or not. Roman had been done for the day, but Dean  _really wasn't_ and wanted to stick around a little longer to beat the ever loving crap out of a punching bag. Roman left on his own and checked into a room for himself  _and_ his brother anyway, and found out the next day from the brother in question that he went somewhere else because he finished up really late and didn't want to bother Roman with letting him in at such an unreasonable hour. It didn't change the fact that Roman  _completely would have_ , if a little grumpily.

It begged the question neither of them had the guts to ask with their voices: Were they still The Shield? Of course they wanted the answer to be  _yes_. The answer  _was_ kind of yes. They made up more of The Shield than their wayward ex-teammate did, for being only one (sorry excuse of a) man, while they were two. The truth of it all had been sobering at best, though: that two Hounds didn't make a whole Shield, and that they needed to move on.

Dean was still pursuing Seth.  _Relentlessly_. He was scheming up crazy, elaborate plans that were more tedious than strategic. He clearly had a handle on things at the moment, but Roman worried for him. The dangerous offensives could backfire on him any day, but he definitely wouldn't listen if Roman tried to tell him that. It wasn't to say Roman didn't enjoy watching capable hands get revenge on a person who hurt  _him_ in equal measure, but Dean ranked above that. He always would.

Moving on meant starting his own affairs and worrying primarily about himself, so that was what Roman had been up to as of late. Driving places alone and eating alone. The weirdest one for him was falling asleep in a room that wasn't being inhabited by anyone else, though. Hearing someone else's breathing nearby felt more natural to him than hearing silence.

He was looking around his digs and still coming to grips with the fact that he wouldn't blink open his eyes in the morning to the winding feeling of Dean dropping an elbow into his gut— and Seth tsking at him for having the  _gall_ to do such a thing. He would wrap Dean in a headlock and stumble away from the bed with him while Roman drowsily watched, willing himself to get up by using his brothers for inspiration. They had a tendency to rise way before he did. Kind of annoying, actually.

They would tussle until Dean's grunts and growls of fierce exertion melded with humming laughter as Seth messed his hair up, because all he really wanted was a back-and-forth, even if there was no clear winner. Their youngest brother would shove Dean down onto the flanking bed before turning back around with a, "Seriously though, Rome," and warning him that there would be repercussions if he didn't get his ass up.

Fifty percent of the time, Roman would remain stationary and challenge Seth to come over and move him. It was healthy practice, really. The other fifty percent would be him dragging himself out of bed with a despondent mutter and no interest in a fight. They would be able to glean what kind of mood he was in by whichever one he chose and deal with him accordingly.

"Best friends" didn't cover it.

Seth probably preferred the challenge, though, because he would hold off and leave Roman be if he picked the latter option, and his heart wasn't often for that. Dean was always on hand, because Seth couldn't beat Roman unless he  _cheated_. The name of the game was resisting, but they always managed to push him to the floor.

Every moment of the day after a wake-up call like that had the energy to mirror it. Days that began like that didn't always save the same day by the end of it, but it kept them happy for the majority of it. More to remember fondly than not.

When all three of them won gold on the same night in 2013, the morning that proceeded it had been dreary as all hell. They were too petrified to be anything  _but_  completely focused, and evidently it paid off. There was no definite pattern at all.

They just  _were_ , and they were damn happy to be for a little while. A good eighteen months.  _Christ_ , it felt so much longer than that.

Just as details were beginning to break through the protective rust and flood back to him, Roman did away with them and shifted gears forcibly, getting himself settled in the  **now**  instead of reminiscing. He didn't know why he even started.

As he was laying in bed late in the evening with the TV on and his mind drifting, he blearily wondered if getting up would be quite as easy as it once was, all things considered. He set an alarm on his phone just in case it  _was_  the case that he had grown far too used to the aforementioned rousing elbow drops or the playful threats, and fell asleep the instant the TV remote slipped from his fingers.

He wound up awakening an hour  _before_  the alarm went off. It was after he had an unnervingly grotesque dream about three dogs with shadow-black fur and glaring white eyes partaking in a brutal, gory fight he was unable to break up. Tears of flesh and droplets of blood with no color to them. No whimpers of pain, for how painful it all  _looked_. Barking and snarling and inch-away clicking of sharp teeth was what rung in his ears and caused him to wake up with a start, thinking they were in the room with him.

It cut him so  _deep_  that he shut his eyes and willed back those thoughts he previously banished for being too bittersweet— wishing for happy visuals and fond memories he could almost touch— to beat back the unpleasant images that were reeling through.

He settled on a comfortable flash of catching Dean's elbow before it came down onto his stomach and flipping the startled man over with a smug smirk, reversing their positions. Dean rolled with the metaphorical punches and reached straight up to him, tongue poking out of his mouth, countering the smooth, anticipatory reaction to his predictable attack by encompassing Roman's neck with all ten of his fingers and doing something a little  _less_ predictable with them. Not to hurt. Never to hurt.

A fail-safe tactic. He did his bit until Roman could no longer pretend the unapologetic teasing coupled with the kidlike smile on his goofus brother's face was something he could remain strong through, and tore away from him with an itching wriggle and a cleansing mop of his grinning face, vacating the bed and getting up finally— like they planned it, if the sound of his two teammates slapping hands behind him told him anything.

The sun was back and the night terrors were stuck in the night for now. His phone lit up on the bed, and he exhaled greatly when he checked it, smiling at the safety-affirming text message from Dean that he found asking him what kind of fries he wanted as a side for his burger— following two unread messages indicating that he was going to get donuts before finding out the shop he saw across the street from him was closed for Father's Day.

Roman was in the middle of tapping an answer in when Dean sent a fourth text wishing him Happy Father's Day.


	4. Contusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing fluffy about this chapter ~~except for a small part at the end~~. Oops.
> 
> This is a bit of an interesting one. I incorporated (and heavily revised in some places) a parking lot fight scene I wrote between Dean and Seth years ago (2015, I'm guessing) from a different fanfic idea I had at the time. Back when heel Seth was fresher in my mind, for sure. Worked out all the parts that made me wince, because there were a few. I'm happy for old writing I can put to use somewhere!

They were in  _Iowa_  of all places for this show. Davenport, no less. Seth was running, because that was what he did these days— never mind the fact that he had a hometown to represent or a corporate group of suits to impress.

If Dean was in the building, Seth ran. He didn't run for long, and then they fought, and sometimes Seth had help but other times he didn't. It was a wild ride every time, and only Dean ever showed any signs of enjoying it. There were also times when he didn't, and it had nothing to do with whether he won the battle or not.

On this quiet, warm night, Seth had no help. And Dean? Dean just so happened to be enjoying himself quite a bit.

The guy getting ready to close up the truck garage door at the far end of the rocking arena probably wouldn't have guessed as much, because of the  _look_ Dean gave him on malicious approach; rampantly winding his broad shoulder to readjust the leather jacket that was persistent on falling off of him, with teeth baring in a wild, split-second grin as he turned his head to the side. Dried skids of blood ran down from the neck hole of his off-white tank top—and it was his own blood, actually, but this guy didn't know that.

Medical staff cleaned him up nice. Steel napkin holders to the dome were no joke, as it turned out— although you could have fooled Dean.

He stared the smaller man down, putting the insincere smile away once he realized it was keeping the bonehead around instead of making him scram like Dean wanted. He used the height advantage he forgot he had as of late, piercing through this ballsy staff member's very  _soul_ with his eyes and all two-hundred twenty-five pounds of muscly, unquestioned  _assurance_  that the wise thing to do was to get the hell out of his way.

The message was swiftly received and the man slunk away down the hall without a word. Dean proceeded on under the space beneath the rattly, reflective door and strode outside, scratching idly at the itch beneath the firmly stuck bandage on his forehead. It was already plastered over by wet, stringy hair.

He made it up the ramp and stepped out onto level ground, surveying a large sea of cars with LED lights bouncing off their roofs and doors. He pressed his lips tight together and looked around— _all_ around. His neck craned, leading his body in an aimless twirl as he observed the lot in placid silence. The shadows crawling up the masonry of the building behind him looked suspicious, but not in a way that put him on edge. Made him smile. He started heading that way, all shoulders with an innocent quirk to his brows.

His eyes scanned the lot and the arena perimeter and the path in front of his boots, most pressingly of all. He passed by a yellow car and couldn't help peering in through the tinted glass, but there was nothing. He would have  _known_  if there was something.

"SETH!" he shouted raspily, jerking away from the car with an irritated jump of his shoulders. "C'mon, my brother; don't be square. We've got all of Iowa hangin' on us! Granted, it's not  _all_  of Iowa, but it's a good portion of it. Isn't this where you were conceived? Man, what a mistake. I'll bet mommy and daddy are really learnin' the hard way that there're no backsies, right?!" It would be the last thing out of his mouth before something cracked  _nastily_  against his jaw. The impact of the weighty blow turned his head to the side— and his whole body with it.

Rabid  _joy_ — not dismay— was what he was experiencing for the agony of his ex-stablemate popping up out of nowhere with every intention of beating him senseless. A strangled laugh escaped him as he and Seth toppled over onto the pavement in a flurry of fists and hair.

"You wan'me to crack your SKULL OPEN, DEAN?!" Seth was livid. The  _volume_ , the roughness, the lack of flightiness; it was everything Dean needed to attain a fulfilled night, in all honesty. " _I'll oblige_!"

"Ohh, you spoil me!" Dean managed to worm his way out from under the man, lashing out for all he was worth. He blindly grabbed at strands of damp hair and wrenched down, bashing a fist into the sellout's temple as soon as he lined the two surfaces up. His grip was loose to begin with, though, and Rollins pushed and shoved until he was free, landing a sharp, winding stomp onto Dean's chest when he jumped to find his footing.

"Yuh- y- y'see?" Dean wasn't done. He had no air in his lungs, but the words were more important. Stuttering feebly up at Seth, who was ignoring him for a time to look all around, getting an idea of what to do with the surroundings he had at his disposal. "See how much we get done when you don't run, brother?"

The familial address made Seth's head snap around in anger, glaring down at him with reinforced spite.

"We're not brothers," he said, in his stiffest, coolest tone yet.

Dean gathered what little breath he collected to blow some air out through his lips in an exaggerated expression of relief, laying the back of his hand over his bandage. "Thank  _God_."

He didn't get much of a reprieve. The toe of Seth's dress shoe nailed him in the side, making him suck in another sharp breath and reel away silently, curling in on himself.

"This is boring," Seth spat, wiping the blood from the pavement-induced scrape off the side of his face and flicking it onto Dean's torn jeans with a twitch of his hand.

Dean remained on his side, the most unflattering groaning sound in the history of unflattering groaning sounds leaving him as he reached for his face, massaging his jaw with the lifted hand. "I agree," he croaked.

"Don't shirk on your responsibilities now, Ambrose," Rollins grunted, bending down to pull his former partner up by the roots of his hair and the scruff of his jacket that was slowly and surely getting worked off his torso. He draped an arm over his  _not_ -brother's back and held the nape of his neck in a vice grip, stumbling with him over to the yellow car. "I'm feelin' like the emergency room tonight. Whattaya think, Dean?"

"Yeah. With cheese," Dean said. The painful pull on his hair did no favors for the everlasting ache in his head. It was already too pronounced, and when Seth let go, it didn't let up an iota. A newer,  _searing_  pain tore through his hip— making him forget about it— when his whole body bowed to the will of the hood of the car after Seth shoved him hard enough to push him over the edge of the Earth.

"You were never funny, Dean. I mean, yeah, Roman and me— we'd always laugh at what I guess was your best stuff. I dunno about him, but I was always faking." Seth placed his hands up on Dean's shoulders, pushing him down to sit on the hood. "It sucked. I hated being around you." He punched his ex-best friend in the stomach with that, removing any air from his lungs that had been recovered since the stomp. "Truly, the  _funniest_  thing is that  _you_ , Dean Ambrose,  _loved_  being around me. I'm guessing that trust you put in me wasn't somethin' you handed out freely to just anybody. For how long it lasted, I was honored."

Dean screwed up his face after the fact, mouth slightly agape as his aching, burning body heaved.

Seth must have caught sight of the look, because he went on with, "No, seriously, I  _was_. You're a tough nut to crack, man. Just..." He tilted his head to the side, pulling Dean up again by the arm and ramming him into the exterior of the vehicle once more. "...not  _that_ tough."

His monologuing costed him after that. Dean reversed their positions in a burst of energy and rage, taking a prolonged turn of his own using the car as a base weapon to kick the crud out of his former teammate. Seth let out a sound comparable to a heaving retch when he was hurdled full force into the door handle.

Dean snatched him away by the unbuttoned dress shirt and set him up for a concussive Dirty Deeds— on the cement. He knew it would take a great deal out of him, too, but he didn't care. The chance of it putting Seth out awhile was all the incentive he needed to push on— or wrench  _down_ , more like. He was just about to,  _centimeters_  from it, when...

"Dean?!" shouted an all-too-familiar voice from far off, causing his immovable hold to loosen. Coupled with how weary he was from not only this fight but the entire night's work, and Seth's familiarity with him and his move set that extended far beyond merely studying it in videos... Seth never did get Dirty Deeds'd; he slipped out of Dean's clutch and spun around, driving a knee up into his ribs. The offensive pushed him against the car all over again, and his other side fared no better; a whole rib cage boxed in by pain. 

And something was wrong this time; it hurt to breathe. Reason dissolved and Dean didn't know how or why or  _what_. He'd  _wanted_  what he was about to do, but...

"Couldn't stomach it or somethin'?" Seth jeered. A well-placed kick to Dean's kneecap took out his leg, and Seth followed him down, pinning his head to the car door by his hair. The leather jacket wound up on the asphalt. It suddenly occurred to Dean that there was a chance Seth didn't hear the distant call that distracted him from following through, what with his head and ears being covered at the time. Seth thought he  _balked_ , when it couldn't have been further from the truth.

When his former partner let go, it was as if a string had been cut, and Dean flopped over onto the painted cement beside the car with just enough time to brace with both hands. Seth seized him by one elbow and easily flipped him onto his back; no longer resisting when everything hurt. His head fell back against the ground restfully, even though the fight wasn't done.

"What'd we join this business for, Dean? Huh?" His head was pushed over onto its side by a sharp nudge from Seth's hand, lolling wherever it went. "Couldn't have been for the same reason you wanted me to stay put right where I was. How inhumane of a person you gotta be to expect someone to just stay in one place and never wanna  _leave_." He grabbed for Dean's face, sinking his fingers deeply into cheek and jawbone. "Just... expect 'em to take whatever crap you dish out on any given day and just think they'll roll with the punches  _forever_."

"Could've told us," Dean muttered, shaky hands loosening on Seth's confining hands and wrists. "We would'a let-"

" _Let_ ," scoffed Seth, almost laughing at the word. The deep grip his fingers had under Dean's jaw hurt  _immensely_ , and they only tightened with the emphasis he coldly applied in retort. "All right.  _Completely fair_." He pulled Dean to sit up, and slumped his shoulders exasperatedly to accompany a smirk when the older fell down yet again, incredibly weak, and... something else. "I can't even  _try_ to get even? You can't be  _that_  worse off, Ambrose."

"Nope," Dean agreed with him, making his smile fall. "Just stallin' a bit. You should probably turn around now. Not gonna like the view— fair warning."

Seth did as instructed, and, as Dean predicted,  _did not_ like the view one bit. He gasped and braced to leap out of the way. He nearly got crushed between the car and the hulking mass of infuriated, long-haired Samoan who came lunging at him out of nowhere; scattering like a bird from backyard grass when a large dog comes galloping through.

The vehicle rocked to and fro after getting slammed into by a wall of muscle, adorned with a familiar tattoo sleeve. Roman kept his footing but gripped at the shoulder, wincing through the pain he caused himself. Seth retreated to the other side of the car awfully fast, getting clear of the livelier threat.

"You're just gonna run, like  _always_ ," Reigns mocked, expression darkening as Rollins fanned out his arms to make a frustrated comeback. The youngest strode away from the car, shouting over his shoulder:

"Wha?! You think I'm gonna partake in an unfair fight? C'moooon."

"Maybe you shouldn't step to us unless you bring an entire fuckin' army with you!" Roman was helping Dean to his feet when he shouted it. He let the latter lean against the car door as he continued to relentlessly holler after their former brother, "My boy's pain is my OWN pain!" 

As soon as Seth was gone, the Cincinnati Scrapper slumped over the vehicle, all but falling asleep standing up. He felt his waist get wrapped up from behind by strong arms as Roman pulled him along back toward the building.

The physical hurt slipped under Dean's conscious radar as a different sort of unpleasant, gut  _pain_ that tingled unmanageably under his skin took precedence above all else, with echoes of,  _'I was always faking,'_ and,  _'_ _not_ that  _tough,'_ that wouldn't leave his mind alone, no matter how much he tried to reassure himself that it came from the mouth of a scumbag anyway. The fact somehow made the unpleasant gut feeling  _sharper_.

 

* * *

 

Dean returned to his antsy self in the trainer's room Roman took him into, fatigue seemingly forgotten about.

"I had him, man."

"I believe it."

"I  _had him_. I had him on the ropes." Roman squinted confusedly. Dean waved an idle hand and clarified, "Metaphorically. I was gonna give him Dirty Deeds. He couldn't escape, and I had him right where I wanted him, brother, and then I... heard..."

Roman's face softened as realization hit him. "Heard... me? ...  _Me_ , Dean?"

Dean didn't confirm or deny. He put his head down in the palm of his hand, pushing the wet hair off his bandaged forehead so it was slicked back, reminding his older brother of the way he used to gel it.

"I distracted you." Guilt pooled in his stomach— but not for the long term. "And you— you were gonna plant his face out there, right next to the car? That would'a taken out your back, man. Don't'chu know better?" The light scolding, even if  _intended_  to be light, didn't have the strength behind it he wanted. He was staring at the outline of Dean's hand underneath the tank top, holding an ice pack to the ribs he bruised getting slammed into the car. "But that- that's my fault. I shouldn't've called out; I should'a just come."

Dean shook his head, not saying anything. He looked a mess, and the doctor had already done everything he could for the problem— in addition to giving Dean some advice on how to cope until the bruise healed. Roman knew he wasn't listening worth shit, though, so he jotted a fair bit of it down in his head for later use.

"Here." He handed Ambrose his leather jacket without locking eyes with him. He moved on with business before the younger could even formulate a 'thank you' for retrieving the hands-down sickest part of his wardrobe from the parking lot ground. "You get hit anywhere else bad?"

"Try everywhere," huffed Dean, grinning briefly; conveying humor that just  _wasn't there_ for once. Not sincerely.

"You look like crap. Lotsa hard surfaces in parking lots, Dean." The older was in full-blown caring brother mode. He reached out in bleak inquiry, wrist curving around the back of Dean's elbow and rubbing cautiously at his left shoulder blade just as Dean was popping a piece of gum into his mouth.

Dean chewed and fidgeted, rolling his left shoulder in response to the ministration. "Don't hurt. Still want you'ta stop," he said, with such a shortness about him that Roman immediately ceased doing it.

"Are you okay otherwise?"

"'M'fine. Just don't touch me." His voice was blank. He stared at the quarter round on the floor with unmoving eyes, and Roman took a step back after releasing a breath.

"I'm sorry I didn't come  _sooner_."

"Nah, you're fine." He hopped off the table, snapping away on the sweet glob in his mouth. He placed a steady hand on Roman's bare shoulder and squeezed. "My head would'a been mush if you didn't come when you did."

"'Would'a been'?" Roman repeated, smiling faintly. The vaguely teasing tone of voice was barely detectable in the too-quiet room somehow, with only the ticking of the clock on the wall serving as ambiance. "It's already there, I thought...?"

The reception was less than usual. Dean didn't crack a smile and only maintained eye contact with him five seconds longer, noisily smacking on the gum, before turning his back to him and holding the jacket aloft in front of him, finding the shoulder seams in somber quiet. Roman mentally kicked himself for even  _considering_  trying to make his brother laugh when it probably hurt more than anything to do so right then.

Dean slipped into the jacket and gazed down at his half-cuff-covered hands. They moved behind his neck to fix the collar, but his eyes focused nowhere else; continuing to stare endlessly on, even when he started to talk again:

"I need somewhere... somewhere that ain't here," he said.

"Where?" Roman tried asking, while he still could. While Dean was still here,  _with him_ , and not out who-knows-where getting his body mangled or his wrists clapped in handcuffs.

"Tell ya when I know." Dean sidled up to the door and pushed out against it with his shoulder, vacating the trainer's room. Roman didn't expect him to stay in the building. He didn't trust him not to go far.

He  _did_  trust him to follow through on his promise of "telling him when he knew", because while Dean refused to stop, he never pushed Roman away. It was the one thing, of few, that Roman could count on. Him and his boy were the same like that.

The moment came sooner than he expected. He got the call behind the dormant wheel of his car, sitting in the parking lot outside his picked hotel seconds before he was about to exit the vehicle.

"Did you find it?" he asked, instead of saying hello.

Dean hummed an affirmative. He went without speaking a moment, and then said, with a blankness that sounded...  _forced_ , was the best way Roman could describe it, "Car graveyard... 'n now 'm'done. I'm good. I'm just..." He paused. 'Broke off' was more like it. Roman's heart dropped when he considered a possible reason. "I'm tired, Roman," Dean finished, with little strength.

If he thought there was any shame to be had for it, he really _was_ crazy.

"Come over. You know you're welcome— always."

Dean cleared his throat. His voice went gruff again as he collected himself. "Yeah. Yeah, man. Where're you at?"

They hung up after Roman gave him the address to the place and his room number. He hurried inside and quickly accessed said room, flipping on only the one lamp on the nightstand. They wouldn't need any more light than that.

He waited around anxiously for the knock at the door. 

When it finally came, what wound up taking the longest was looking out through the peephole; he wrenched open the door faster than what Dean had evidently been anticipating, eager to get him inside. Dean recoiled, and the obsessive way he was rotating his right forearm didn't escape Roman's notice. Almost normal, but not on a night like tonight.

The weak, tear track-stained grin and affectionately slanted eyes didn't lessen but  _added_  to how terrible his brother looked.

Roman ushered him into the room and took Dean's hand in both of his own, pushing back the leathery cuff to curve his lips down at the sight of four bleeding scrapes on each knuckle, no longer oozing— but the smeared red made it all look worse than it was.

"How'd this happen?" The slight, subtle shrug he received in response made the older take a step back, never letting go and only making a stern face, conveying exasperation. "I'm just gonna assume you whaled on a dead car. Would you prefer I think that?"

"Sounds noble enough." The familiar wryness in his voice was a glimmer of hope.

Roman took him into the bathroom and practically cleaned the scrapes _for him_ ; his boy was dead on his feet and in no condition to listen to instructions. Probably/definitely wasn't the first time he ever had to take care of himself in this way, but in either case, he was too out of it to listen  _or_  do it himself, and so Roman took initiative.

"He emotes," he couldn't help saying with a smirk, when he pressed rubbing alcohol on with a wad of toilet paper and a long, drawn-out hiss moved past Dean's bared teeth.

"Nnnn... uuuhh, shutup," Dean quietly replied, looking so hopelessly lost still that Roman's amusement was short-lived. He screwed the cap on the bottle and went about applying medicine. He coaxed Dean into using the free hand to splash some water on his face, getting rid of the sweat and the tears and whatever other grime he picked up out in that parking lot that he didn't allow the medical staff to clean.

He left for the main room again after giving Dean a towel from the nearby rack to wipe his face with, sorting the single bed out. Grabbing every last pillow in the room and arranging them just so. Only remedy he had for bruised ribs on hand aside from painkillers, which he already let Dean have.

"No," groused Dean from behind, making Roman turn. The brawler had a hand (promisingly tightened into a fist that could probably still knock a tooth out) secured on the door frame, speaking drowsily: "This's your place. Bed ain't mine. You sleep in it; I'll..." He panned his gaze around the room meant for one, looking without seeing. Roman snorted at the assumption being made.

"You think I'm givin' it to you?" He sat on the edge of the mattress, unable to help sighing at the exertion relief it brought  _him_ , finally. "Nah, man, it's for both of us. You got some good padding here— for the ribs. Just..." He leaned over, plucking just one pillow from the nest he made and throwing it toward the headboard. "...lemme have this one. The rest are yours."

"Ah, see, now that's a deal breaker," Dean said, in an attempt at humor even though it was spoken all in one tone. He massaged the bruised spot absentmindedly through the thin fabric as he drug himself over to the bed. Freed his feet from the boots and took his jeans off, leaving him in boxers. He crawled to the pillows and settled down on top of and between them, and his gentle expulsion of breath as the cool, pliable cushiness molded to his aching self was balmlike to Roman in equal measure.

He got up to change as well. He returned to the bed minutes later with nothing on his torso and a clean shirt in his hand that he had no intention of wearing.

"Here, man. Don't wear that smelly crap to sleep."

There was no more fussing after that. Dean eased off the soiled tank top in the most pain-free way and pace he could manage, and dropped it over the foot of the bed to the floor. Roman got a brief glimpse at the blue-and-purple discoloration on his brother's exposed ribs before he put the fresh shirt on in the previous garment's place, and he was internally kicking himself again. The fact that  _he_ indirectly put it there...

 _Cool it._ _He's okay._

Dean lied back down with that, never saying a word. Cooperating. Quiet. Not himself. Roman knew he wasn't all right, but now wasn't the time to try and fix any of that. He collapsed into bed in his own right— as softly as what was physically possible so as not to jostle the hurt around in his brother's body.

He fell asleep quickly, to his memory. The next memory he had was waking up while the sun was still absent and being puzzled by the weight thrown over his bare waist and sweatpants-covered legs, pressing him into the mattress. He only remembered what was going on when he felt said weight breathing and saw the rising and falling of a chest in the dimly lit gloom. He realized Dean had turned completely around somehow and was laying with his legs thrown horizontally over his own.

Roman reached over as far as he could to recollect the pillows that had gotten unknowingly shoved aside or strewn and lined the bruised side of Dean's body with them again. He only went back to sleep once they were arranged similarly to before, dozing off with the reassuring thought in his head that his boy would be  _more_  than okay come morning.


	5. Cerebrate

_When_  it started, Seth wasn't sure. It was just there, and evidently it had been for long enough where he wasn't surprised when it got strong enough for him to detect it. Unflinching acknowledgment. He wouldn't tell a soul about it, intentionally or otherwise. Aside from  _very much_ _not wanting to_ , it also implied it was a feeling he was making no plans to try and get rid of by pushing down, which wasn't true at all. He had every intention to.

He was the future champion; the architect of his own success story and the soon-to-be face of the company. No more business partners— only advisers, and a mentor when he needed one. Security, so no one tried anything funny. People to test the stability of a bridge before he crossed it. Very safe. Surprises weren't welcome unless they were pleasant. 

 _That_  was who he was now. Not some scrappy, disheveled, flak jacket-wearing baby brother who liked to pretend he was a dog and had no shame in sharing the room space with two equally-as-delusional older 'Hound' brothers. (A disclaimer: Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns were  _not_ Seth Rollins' brothers. They were never his brothers. Not by blood, or... that other thing people seemed to think mattered. Bond?)

Ah. He'd taken what he needed and gave back far more than he ever should have, even if Dean and Roman said otherwise. (And how dare anyone say he used them like it wasn't mutual gain? They used him just as much!)

All of that crap was irrelevant now. Old news.

Even with the two of them in his rear view mirror, he still had to deal with  _this crap_? This... distracting, weak crap?

He wasn't referring to the green slime-soiled suit or the baton bruises. Granted, that stuff  _blew_. He found that he was still collapsing into bed every night with just as much shakiness and groaning in his muscles as suffered back when The Shield was still a thing... only, in this new era's case, he was performing extra, additional steps  _before_ a scheduled routine could take precedence above all the nonsense, like picking soggy pieces of popcorn out of his tangled hair before showering.

(Fuck, The Shield might have stayed together longer if someone had told him he would have had to do something like that later on.)

Convincing himself of one thing or another in the mirror, also, or tending to little injuries that weren't by any means accidental or the innocent result of a crash-and-burn, but put there  _intentionally_ — carrying in them as much spite as a certain face he was seeing way too much of lately.

(Whenever Seth Rollins bled, it was because someone  _wanted him_ to bleed. No accidents. It was a good thing he so often chose fleeing over fighting.)

Then he'd lay under the covers and glare at the wall until his eyes couldn't stay open anymore, steamed but too tired to do anything about it, and... the new steps, he soon discovered, didn't cease there.

 _What_ started it, he didn't know either. Maybe it was that movie he had on in his hotel room for background noise the other day while he was getting ready to leave? He rolled over one morning and stared at that same point on the wall he was surely wearing down with all the impersonal hatred he was directing at it, too sleep-mussed to be steamed this time, and thought awhile. Too long, probably. Scarcely moving, until he decided he wanted to move his hand and forgot where exactly said hand  _was_ — right up until accessing it turned on its location.

His whole body  _jumped_. Legitimately. The touch felt foreign for a few nerve-racking seconds, and then, just as fast, it was his again, and his skin knew not to recoil from it anymore. It still tingled, though.

He snapped out of his thoughts and struggled out from under the covers, touching his fingers to the same spot on his bare side again and nodding, reassured, when the unexpected sensation didn't repeat itself. Good. The way his lips curled upwards for that brief moment was absolutely  _not_  a relief from the chronic frowning and infuriated yelling as of late, and it definitely  _did not_  remind him of anything even slightly fun.

He tried again, just to be sure. But nope. Nothing. Not even running the backs of his nails down his ribs did much of anything; nothing close to what he managed when he caught himself unawares. It  _had_ to be a surprise. It couldn't be intentional. He couldn't be anticipating it, or else no flinch. No smile.

Why did that entire concept frustrate him so much all of a sudden?

When he sat with it for a good while, he couldn't help lumping it with all that other far-gone, ghosting crap that he could always get to feeling if he thought about them long enough. Squeezes to the nape of his neck and pats on the upper back that were equal in strength. Hugs. He  _still_  got all of that. Why did thinking about  _those things_ make his chest swell in the same way... _this_ did?

He couldn't think of an answer that didn't make him want to scoff and roll his eyes. It had him come to the hasty conclusion that dispute-settling answers weren't for him (especially if they outright refused to tell him only the things he wanted to hear), and that was enough. He was content with that.

The skin prickled where his fingernails just were. It felt like an outcry for something. Probably a shirt. He got up to put one on, smoothing the palms of his hands over his front to rub the feeling away, even if making it worse kind of appealed to him more right then.


	6. Evanished

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references chapter 2. The only blatant continuity I had planned so far. ^^  
> More self-indulgent fluffiness tbh.

A noisythud on the entrance side of the long tour bus startled Dean out of his reverie.

It startled him so much, in fact, that he jumped and slid off the leathery seat bathed in nighttime street light to the floor below, falling against the cold, wetted plastic bag storing a six pack of beer previously propped against his shin and making it rustle.

"Roman," he briskly said, catching sight of who entered through the sliding door that was rigged in such a way where said man could get a foot in easily, pushing it the rest of the way open and then letting it snap closed behind him. " _My boy_. Come on in."

"Already in." The friendliness Dean was accustomed to hearing in his brother's voice was entirely absent. Roman swung around the nearest beam coming down from the ceiling and sat, visibly fuming, on the long, soft seat. Dean clambered back up it and picked up the bag on the way over, edging closer to his best friend.

"Rough night?"

"Yeah. I don't wanna..." Roman rubbed a tight circle into his forehead, glaring deeply out the opposite window through his fingers. "Don't wanna talk about it, Dean."

His boots were still laced, but his hair was clean; tied back neatly. He wore a spotless gray t-shirt in the place of his vest, but the black pants he had on had faint mustard stains on both knees. Dean made a wincing face but opted not to ask about that. Roman vowed to fight all his battles alone. Bringing up anything about the ordeal he had clearly just been through would feel too much like admonishing him.  _'_ _Why didn't you call me up to help? I would'a come._ _'_

What he did instead was make light of it, because he couldn't  _not_ say anything:

"I've manned my fair share of hot dog carts, Roman," he lied for the sake of the joke (as he had only ever manned  _one_ ), "and I'm gettin' the sense you took a wrong turn earlier tonight. Made a bad move. It can be hard to dodge squirting condiments sometimes, I get it, but even fighting something remotely inevitable requires  _effort_ , at least. Gives you a morale boost if nothin' else."

Roman never took his hand off his face. His grimace only deepened when his brother got back to his feet and propped a knee on the bus seat. "Falls Count Anywhere; I got thrown out into the lobby, and it-" he bit back a wince of his own, angrily furrowing his brows, "-it wasn't a cart; it was a stand. It wasn't squirted; I landed in it."

"Yuck." Dean screwed up his face at the visual. His eyes softened after moments, reaching out and gently brushing his knuckles against the back of his old stablemate's hand that still wasn't leaving his face for anything. "Messy Twister isn't for us. We're combatants, dammit."

The giddy laugh that was fluttering away in his lungs died in his chest as soon as he saw the cool stare Reigns directed at him, no matter how funny he found his own jokes to be.

"Right. Can I ask what the hell's been up with you all these months, man?"  _That_ definitely wasn't the route he was expecting they would take. It was whatever, though. Cool. Roman didn't wait for an answer from him and carried on: "You've- uh. Changed. You used to be a lot more focused, you know? Stone cold, steely-eyed  _tunnel vision_. I love you either way, you know I do, but it seems like it's- it's maybe not... the  _real_  Ambrose we're getting. Does that make sense?"

 _Shit_ , was he being dramatic tonight.

Dean stood stock still and tried to mask how much the brief little (rambly) analysis of him threw him off by maintaining his dimpled smile, even if it really didn't change anything about how he felt. That he was just  _happy_ right now. He was in good spirits. Even  _better_  now that his blood, his brother, his  _best friend_  was here. He wanted Roman to know that.

"Can't catch Steve Austin Stunner'ing no more, Roman. How hard did you hit your head on the way in here to think we got transported back to '97?" There was a reborn laugh in his voice, if a slightly tentative one. He hadn't staked a claim in taking a playful dig at Roman's painfully dorky mistake boarding the bus once he saw how bad of a mood he was in, so this was a taken risk through and through.

The silence that followed made him fear the worst, but then Roman's shoulders twitched and he expelled some air through his nose, poorly attempting to hide his smile behind his fist even though the crinkles at the edges of his eyes gave him away.

"Smartass. Fine."

Dean resisted cracking up prematurely and carried on, relief being replaced by a mighty need to taunt, "I mean, you're s'posed ta whack the roof with your fist; not bang your skull on the jamb."

"I did both," Roman stated.

"You only had to do one!"

The older clamped his mouth and leaned in, teetering off the seat edge. There was a tick of quiet before he forced out, "Fuck off, man. You don't know shit," in an overly tense, very clearly unserious tone. Dean placed his hand over his heart in feigned hurt, even though the grin on his face told a different story.

"You're the beeest." He cuffed Roman on the shoulder and then lifted the bag up, letting it rest on the seat. "I brought this for us. Now I'm startin'na think you don't appreciate what I bring to this relationship."

"I appreciate it. I just don't always understand it. I'm always puttin' in the effort, though." He watched Dean pull the six pack out of the bag and break off a can. Roman caught his wrist when he passed it to him and gave it a warm press, earnestly saying, "Thanks, man," without a lilt of humor or insincerity.

Dean gave a visibly bored shrug and held loosely onto it until Roman took it from him, neither accepting nor declining the thanks. He was breaking off a can for himself when he got around to replying, speaking in a volume that was a notch shy of being entirely mumbled under his breath, "Maybe you can crush it on your dome when you're finished with it. You seem to like that."

Roman had been in the middle of cracking open his can when he heard the additional jibe. It made him jolt, which caused beer to slosh out of the aluminum and roll down his arm. He transferred the can from one hand to the other and ran said arm up against Dean's midsection, wiping the wetness off on his clean muscle tee. Dean jumped at the initial contact when all he expected was a smack to the abs, and looked up when the shock of the abruptness passed— actually kind of irritated for real— as the wiping continued.

"You done?" he asked, feeling sufficiently dissed.

"Almost." Roman swiped his arm across the fabric one last time before stopping at the wrist. "It— aw, Dean, it got all in between my  _fingers_ ," he rubbed his knuckles into a gradually weakening Dean's stomach, "and what am I supposed to do? You should've brought a towel."

He quit screwing around once the back of his hand was dry and fanned his fingers out, squeezing erratically at Dean's lower ribs and making him fold in on himself instantly, grinning and huffing. Ineffectively pushing back against the unannounced torso tickling with the hand holding the beer can, until it was seized. He braced his empty hand on the bigger man's shoulder and pushed off, but his wrist was never relinquished and he was pulled right back in. Tough break.

Indomitable Lunatic Fringe Dean Ambrose was  _not_  a man who flinched easy. He grappled fearlessly with juggernauts. He was a pain sponge. He had iron-fisted control over his whole self and anything else under the moon and sun he wanted, and things— be they of physical or emotional power— only affected him as much as he allowed them to. It was his defining trait, and it wasn't by any means a facade. It was more like a mode. He couldn't be bent.

This mode wasn't turned on now, although he had no memory of turning it off. He was pretty sure Roman knew how to breach it, because as far as he was ever concerned, the tone  _always_  shifted. Dean barely noticed he  _was_  letting someone past those walls. It was fun; it wasn't work. There was nothing on the line. And it was  _Roman_.

Roman took a swill of his beer before setting it down on the thin ledge next to the window, immediately tugging Dean closer with a chuckling, "Get over here," and targeting that sweet spot at the bottom of his ribs again, garnering a laughing squawk and more ferocious pulling.

 _A_ _ctually getting away_  was a pretty lukewarm concept in his eyes. It was wonderful  _and_  craptastic, and he really didn't want it to end-

"Fffahaha—  _uck_! Shit-"

"Ah, what'd I do?" His pained shout had Roman clearing off at once, yanking the hand back and ceasing the practiced scribbling and spidering.  _Squeezing_ , which was the killer. Somewhere along his left side. Dean didn't know; he couldn't keep track when it came to the daily swivel of tender areas. There was a new one every day.

He shook his head, smile returning. "'M'bruised  _everywhere_. Doesn't gotta ruin the good time."

"We were already having a good time. I'm not gonna hurt you for it."

A well of confliction knotted up Dean's insides. Everything in him wanted to argue. This time felt so  _seamless_ and  _naturally fun like it used to be_ , but they actually hadn't played around like this in forever. It wasn't where Roman's mind was at, Dean assumed. He was otherwise engaged, too—  _less_ often than more. He also had the haziest memory of it being the absolute  _last thing_  he wanted to do for a long, long time after stuff... happened.

Before he could vocalize any of his discontent with stopping, Roman used the grip he had on his arm to pull him down onto the seat with him. He set about smoothing a hand over Dean's curls in doting fashion and grabbing back his beer can with the other hand, reclining as much as he could on the stiff bus seat. Dean looked absently to his own can that he was somehow still holding and hadn't dropped.

"'Ey, you can get me back if you want. I won't budge," Roman offered. Dean looked up at him and saw that his brother was leaning back far and spreading his arms somewhat, genuinely giving him an opening to tickle him back or pummel him or maybe both. He knew that if he did the former thing, Roman most certainly  _would_  budge, a lot. Still a nice gesture.

He gave it thought. He didn't feel like doing either one, ultimately, and couldn't help reflecting on how  _right_ Roman had been about him changing while he was debating it. Being different. He  _was_  different, with an answer he didn't even have to  _think about_ like: "Nah. 'S'not fair if you can't fight back."

Roman hummed a quiet laugh at that and slung his left arm overtop his head, relaxing again. "Where'd that newmentality come from, man? We used to kick people while they were down— three on one. The only dude who ever gave us a run for our money all on his own was Bryan. I guess a whole year of getting ganged up on and having our asses handed to us by those cream puffs in the suits made us  _empathetic_."

"Disgusting." Dean set his can aside to bend at the waist and remove his shoes. He swung his legs up to rest splayed on the long seat and leaned his back against Roman's elevated bicep, sitting sideways and releasing a heavy breath. The position caused his jeans to stretch taut over another nasty bruise on his leg and apply more pain, but he didn't feel much like moving to escape it now. His mind refused to wander far from what was previously eating at him, and surfaced promptly in the form of harsh-sounding words that were only grating because he forced them to be that way:

"How'd that start, anyway? Our whole Deal, with the... the dumb poking and the laughing? It was weird then and it still is now. We're grown men. The only difference between now 'n then is that we're even  _older_ now." He seized his beer off the ledge and finally opened it, hardly flinching at the way it fizzed over and spurted him in the nose for being shaken up too much.

"Our  _D_ _eal_ ," Roman repeated, bright inflection suggesting he was contemplating it. "It was Seth, I think. He started it." He brought his arm down gently to avoid elbowing Dean in the head, letting it fall over the younger's chest like a sash. "The fuck does it matter if it's weird if it makes us smile?" He enunciated it with some aimless pokes to Dean's sternum, and Dean fidgeted not because of that but because of the answer to his question.

"I gotta blame that piece of shit for everything." The repulsion in his voice was wholehearted.

"Blame? You wouldn't blame anybody for it; not even him. I thought you liked it."

"I do." He brought his hand up to his face, stroking his thumb over his smooth chin in broody thought. "But how exactly am I supposed to enjoy it knowin' we wouldn't be doin' it if it wasn't for him? He established a dynamic 'n then fucked us over. It's like we're worshipping at his boneheaded, backstabbing  _shrine_  or somecrap."

Roman moved so Dean's head lolled over his shoulder. Their eyes never met, but they didn't need to.

"Well, if  _he_  didn't establish it, one of us probably would've. I dunno if you've ever considered it, but we kinda incited it just as much as he did?" He rolled his shoulder and pushed Dean's head off doing so. "Stop reading so much into it. There's a start to feeling better."

Dean wished it could have put a stopper on how he couldn't help feeling on the matter, but that, as it happened, wasn't what  _really_ bothered him about it. Not close.

"I- that was... what we did, that morning," he ground out, struggling to keep his voice wry. It was questioned by a quiet, "Hm?" from Roman, that encouraged him to expound more:

"That morning. That  _day_. After Payback. A year ago this past June. I wanted to... screw around with him. I dunno." He looked down on the street outside the bus window, illuminated by the glaring orange light overhead. The soothing darkness of the interior of the long vehicle felt darker now, somehow.

There was a pause. Roman cleared his throat but didn't move an inch. "Oh yeah. I think I remember— not well; it just sorta blended into all the other mornings honestly, man. All I remember  _vividly_  is what happened that night."

Dean had difficulty pressing it out. It hurt to. "So you think that... you know... only made it worse? You think he just... friggin'... had enough of it? Like inarguably he was already gonna kick us to the curb regardless, but after what I put him through that morning— maybe he  _enjoyed_ doin' it then? There's probably a warning somewhere 'bout forcing too much...  _love_ , or whatever it was, on someone, that they..."

He trailed off warily when he felt tension return to Roman's body. The same angry,  _infuriated_  tension Dean remembered from before when his buddy stepped foot onto the bus in the first place. It definitely wasn't directed at his most recent opponent this time.

"...I'll set the record straight for you, my brother: at no point did you  **ever**  'put him through' _anything_."

The very instant the embittered words were clear of his mouth, he and Dean heard shouting out on the street, closer to the front of the bus. More than a few men.

Roman didn't bat an eye at it, but Dean did. He sat bolt upright, throwing off Roman's arm and darting a hasty look over his shoulder.

"What- what's wrong?" It spurred Roman to sit up straight as well.

"They're early. The buddy who gave me the key to this thing told me these guys— friends of his— wouldn't be comin' back for it for another hour; said they'd leave it just for us 'n we wouldn't have to worry about anybody poppin' in."

"Do we need privacy?" Roman sounded so tired all of a sudden. Dean felt him tense up behind him while he was pulling out his phone, not managing a response before the older continued, tentatively: "So what are you deducing from this, bro?"

"Either I got set up and we're about to get whopped," he skimmed over the last three phone calls he had had, "or we under-negotiated— and we still might get whopped. Bet on it being the second one if they behave like we're trespassing; they've got another key, so they're getting in."

His legs slid off the seat, and he picked up his shoes and stuck his practically-full beer can into one of the foot holes. He rose to his socked feet after that and stuck the six pack that was now only a four pack back into the bag before grabbing it by the handles, en route for the emergency doors in the back.

"There were some faces I didn't... particularly... wanna run into at the hotel at the time of night it was; figured I could wait things out holed up in here. With you, obviously."

Roman got up, too, despite clearly not having a mind for this  _at all_. "Truthfully, if you hadn't told me over the phone that a friend was granting you access, I would'a thought..."

That made Dean stop. He turned on his brother with narrowed eyes, still poised to make an escape.

"...What?"

Roman just shrugged, not intimidated in the slightest. "You don't have the best record of... should we say 'borrowing and returning'?"

"Right, 'cause you'd know  _all_  about that, wouldn't you, my brotha, my compadre, the guy I'd drop absolutely  _everything_  for? The one person I've always done right by without fail? Keep talkin'."

Dean pushed out the emergency doors just as the door up front slid open, and an accusatory, " _Hey_!" from one of the dudes accented Dean's leap to the asphalt below. Roman followed him down, clutching to the mere half-drunk can he grabbed before unboarding. He furled his free fist as Dean went about slamming the doors shut behind them.

"Definitely under-negotiated," Dean said, nodding. Boots could be heard clacking on the ground as the owners of the bus ran around the vehicle to intercept them. He tossed the keys out into their path. They jingled as they hit the concrete, and succeeded in getting them all to grind to a halt a few feet away. "'S'all cool, 's'all cool! I'm sorry! Tim said you boys wouldn't be comin' for another hour! I thought we were set! We've all been duped by good intention!"

"Tim," one of them said, resentfully.

"We weren't expecting you until  _tomorrow_  night, you Lunatic!"

"Haha." Dean laughed through the rage. "Don't call me that."

"Tim must've thought we gave the okay for tonight. He's such a dumbass."

"Hey, you got a problem with Tim, you got a problem with me," Dean warned, good-natured still.

Roman's face was buried in his hand, massaging his eyelids. Talking to no one else but Dean still. "Did you— did you  _need_ to spring this on me after the shit night I just had? We couldn't just chill."

"Ahh, where would the fun in that be?" The flatness of Dean's voice was palpable. "You think I'mma thief caught red-handed in my every waking moment; I didn't wanna disappoint."

"Uh-huh. I don't think we ever actually got to the crux of that, Ambrose."

"The  _crux of it_  is that you should shut your face before I shut it for you." It was actually pretty intense, this standoff they were having. Dean hadn't raised his fist to Roman's jaw since that Fatal 4-Way earlier in the year between the two of them, Seth, and Orton— even just in threat without follow-through. Roman, of course, didn't flinch, and maintained eye contact with him without looking at the foreboding knuckles  _once_.

So absorbed in it, neither of them noticed the small audience forming as the bus dudes stood around, listening to every word of the exchange.

Dean retracted the fist, an unkind smirk steadily forming. "You know, I'd wager you're only in a cranky mood now 'cause you  _lost_ tonight. 'S'that what happened?"

The pissed sigh he got as a response said more than the following words did. It gave him his answer.

"Yeah, you  _changed_ ," Roman quipped, making Dean's shoulders slump in tired anticipation of the barb about to be hurled at him, "but most has stayed the same, like your complete disregard for other dudes and their property, which I still say exists. Does it not matter unless it's yours or your brothers', Ambrose?"

"I think you mean 'broth _ **er**_ ', Ro," Dean corrected him, clearly pronouncing the very much  _non_ -plural word Roman knew he held so close to his heart. " _Singular_."

"Bitch, you think I forgot...?!"

He gave chase when Dean broke into a swift run down the street away from him, not letting him finish. They slunk off into the night together. An astounded-sounding, "Fuckin'  _wrestlers_ ," was said in their wake by the guy who bent down to grab the keys.

It was a wonder the two of them were never tracked down what with how much they were yelling at each other; the language being as colorful as it was loud. They hoofed it all the way back to the now-quiet hotel they were staying at.

Dean lingered in Roman's room awhile— because it was on the first floor while his was on the second and it was a good place to duck for a few minutes, but also because ending the day on an argument was plain out  _not cool_ and was never how they rolled.

Dean put the remaining beer in Roman's fridge and slammed the door  _hard_  before his trek from one side of the room to the other. He plopped down in the living chair beside the window and looked up just in time to see the remorseful glint in his big brother's eyes right before they deviated.

He was finishing off his own beer and taking glances through the curtains to survey the sidewalk when he noticed Roman had given up keeping his distance and was moving around the chair funny; leaning over it and cocking his head to the side, squinting— at  _him_. Dean opened his mouth to question it and got a hand settling against his temple, pushing his head over on an angle.

"I got something on my face, Roman?" He kept his voice tame. The tension was still pretty thick.

Roman's mouth became a tight, serious line that broke only to speak: "No. That's just it. I can't find any."

"Find any what? Hair? That's what shaving's for."

"Bruises," said Roman, gravely.

The two-syllable word turned Dean's stomach in a way he didn't particularly hate, and just as he was piecing together why, the hand on his temple moved in a flurry; flitting over the shell of his ear and ghosting under his jaw. Causing his dimples to return and his shoulder to rocket up.

The tension dissipated. All became well.

...and he was under heavy fire again, twisting and falling out of the chair before that bane of a spot under his chin could get exploited too badly. It should have been illegal for Roman to know about it.

"Not makin' it easy for you, BITCH!"

"Ohoho, no?" Roman grinned deviously. "Show me. Kick my ass."

He dove after Dean, upholding his promise from earlier on the bus to not disturb any bruises and wrestling around with him on the carpeted floor— just enough to lock a confining hold about his neck. Inciting  _war_.

The bruises that  _were_  dinged in the scuffle didn't slow Dean downat all now that he was bracing for the pain, but the hands at the ends of those confining arms started tickling him for real, and no amount of bracing could make that bearable. Short nails scraped at the warm skin over his pulse point and playfully rasped barely-there stubble. The other hand skittered along his clavicle bone, rendering him into pure growling laughs and maddened kicking.

Bonehead got him anywhere and everywhere so long as it was above the shoulders, and only made a sneaky exception for his armpits when his hands got too good at protecting his neck and Roman could think of no other way to get him to lower them.

While Dean wouldn't have considered that the dark side of things, gaining the upper hand and getting Roman back in a fight that was now fair  _was_  a bright side. He did so gladly; Roman was an even louder giggler than him, and pushing him around until his neighbors in the next room banged on the wall for silence reminded Dean of why he enjoyed this.

He realized his nagging guilt for the activity that had plagued him without rest for a full year was finally gone, and that he had no one else to thank for it but the red-faced man in front of him who was propped against the chair holding his stomach, a forced grin still stretching his lips. And even though Dean turned the tickling around, he still couldn't shake his own grin.


	7. Parrying

"I love Roman. I'd give him the shirt off my back."

Dean didn't think the simple fact  _needed_ to be said. Did people not already know it? Anybody who had only been watching for a meager two weeks knew. Everybody knew.

It also couldn't be overstated, for all the repetitiveness and proof that enabled him to keep his mouth shut. You could say his relationship with Roman was...  _important_. More important than tactful alignment and more valuable than anybody gave it credit. The need for it functioning without a hitch encompassed him more often than not...

"...but I gotta throw that out the window tonight," he said into the mic. "Two alpha males who worked their way up the chain for this one chance; in any other scenario it would play to both of our advantages, but there can only be one in this tournament, son."

He paused. Over Byron Saxton's shoulder, a familiar head of dark hair cropped up in the same hallway, towering well over a group of techies and being thrown back as a cold bottle of water was thirstily emptied.

Dean couldn't keep the pointed indignance out of his voice if he  _tried_.

"And quite frankly," he went on, "I don't see why he should have it when I just as easily could. Is the Roman Reigns Bandwagon easier to jump on 'cause it's slower?"

Byron's eyebrows lifted in shock. Several eyes in the hall fell on Dean in an instant. Just as instantly, that head in the distance poked out from behind the techies, accompanied by a face that would have been absolutely dear to Dean on literally any other occasion.

Roman set the bottle down on a cart on his way over. He shouldered up and stopped just before the lens of the camera, giving Dean a once-over with his eyes before leveling him with a punchably smarmy  _look_  that was undoubtedly saying, 'The shirt off your back? What shirt?'

Granted, it was tattered and torn and hanging off his waist like a skirt, but it was still a shirt. A shirt Dean would have gladly given to Roman in the event of a not-so-freak snowstorm; they  _were_ in the cold throes of November here.

More than being potentially useless, it made it possible for his final opponent for the night to get a free scouting view of all the shiny splotches and aching dings and stinging gouges that decorated his torso.

When Roman stepped into frame, his smirk was gone. His hazel eyes were familiar, but not kind. Not warm.

"You know you're my boy," he said, straight into the mic Saxton turned over to him. "Will be forever. There'll never be a time you won't be." Dean passed his weight from one foot to the other and rolled his eyes mightily. Did Roman honestly think  _now_ was the time for-?

"-but I'm just as okay with putting all that noise on hold for the night as you seem to be. You'd best be serious, 'cause you're not meeting your buddy out there."

"I'd be disappointed if I was," Dean responded, in all actuality  _satiated_ by the threat but not enough to dim the competitive flame in his belly. He stared down the older man until he backed up and moved on.

There wouldn't be any taunting in this match. No cheekiness. They were both happy to have made it, but that couldn't show through, either. Not if they wanted to stay focused.

The natural tension was there, and then it was in the ring in the show's main event, standing across the way from one another as Charles Robinson held up the vacant WWE World Heavyweight Championship for all to get an eyeful of. It was taken from his hands and placed back on the display beside the announce desks. Awaiting a new rightful owner.

The bell rung. They didn't wait.

Their boots slammed the canvas as they locked horns. Every button had already been pushed in the preceding matches, and their aggression wasn't anything personal; it was certainly  _convenient_ , but, no, never personal. They weren't working a disagreement out. The earlier attempts made to rile Roman up did absolutely nothing when all this skirmish was concerned with was a title.

Dean got backed up toward the apron until he felt the ropes against his back. His forearm was grabbed and he was spun away from them, instantly using the adjacent ropes to slingshot himself at his opponent halfway across the ring. Going for something flooring.

Roman dug his feet into the canvas and held firm, and was merely bumped by it;  _grazed_. Offering up nothing but a wince. Dean's barrel chest collided with his and neither of them were downed. The younger backed up and  _sneered_  viciously on his immediate rebound, landing a hard chop to the older's torso. Rocking him.

Roman began taking similar shots. They went back and forth like this until the foot Dean retracted from a successfully-landed stomp to Roman's shin relocated on a dime to nailing him in the gut. The resulting grunt and double-over gave Dean a coveted opening to thread his arms through his brother's far beefier ones, but before he could interlock his fingers and wrench down, Roman found a path out of it and wiggled free. Got loose before he could be snared. Not a difficult thing to accomplish when the two of them knew each other on a near-symbiotic level.

If he couldn't counteract his best friend's pride and joy of a Special, was he  _truly_ his best friend? Not likely.

Still, the intensity in Roman's eyes was different now. He almost looked offended by the attempt made to end things early, and Dean smiled fleetingly. Teasingly.

He probably should have anticipated the Samoan Drop that followed, but the move felt less like a strategy and more like a snippy comeback— if snippy comebacks could come in heavy-handed physical assaults. Dean rolled away from the point of impact with a cynical quirking of his lips, favoring his back. Roman didn't allow him a breather and picked him up near the ropes. A gleam in his eyes set off a warning alarm in Dean's brain all too late, and he was tossed over the top; achieving unintentional height from Roman's chuck and suffering all the worse for it once he hit the floor.

Lost breath and wobbliness. He found his feet. There was a scuffle on the outside and he relocated Roman upside the steel steps, almost wincing for having done so. He got back into the ring and let the count begin. Because the title was vacant, it  _could_ be won that way for a change. Though he tried (and preferred) to take wins the old-fashioned way, a win was still a win.

It worked about as well as he was expecting it to, in all honesty; there was no keeping Roman out of that ring. There was no keeping him from getting back in and driving you full-force into the turn buckle for some just clotheslines. Ten of them, in accordance with tradition; Roman  _never_  fucked with the audience and gave them less. It did, on the flipside, buy Dean time to formulate an actual plan rather than just coming up with ideas on the fly.

On the other side of a vast sea of ground holds and boots to the face and pinning down weighty shoulders in hasty, surprise bursts, Dean eventually did hit the man successfully with Dirty Deeds... but Roman kicked out of the pinfall again, because  _of course_  he did; Dean didn't forget who he was fighting.  _He_ kicked out of a Superman Punch. Two of them. He couldn't hear himself think anymore, and it wasn't because of the deafening crowd.

In the end it was that... stupidly effective spear that never ceased to make you feel like you were getting hit by a train. That was the move that put Dean Ambrose down for the count. The  _literal_ count.

He stared woozily up at the ceiling as Robinson called for the bell and declared Roman the winner. Roman was handed the championship. He was knelt on the canvas staring at it tearily, and suddenly nothing was more important to Dean than getting up. The ring was Roman's space now.

He crawled over before he got to his feet. Through half-lidded eyes, he could see just enough of his brother's wide shoulder to drop his chin down onto it, resting. If Roman was still in fight mode and gave him a black eye for it, so be it.

That didn't happen. A hand came around to touch his cheek. Very, very gently. Caressing the screaming spot on his jaw where the last punch connected, and around it. It moved up gingerly, getting lost in his hair. Lightly running nails across his scalp.

Roman only touched. He didn't say anything. Maybe he was beyond words. That was okay.

"You deserve it," Dean said, hoarsely. He didn't know if Roman could hear him or not. He loosened the one-armed embrace he had thrown around him to give him a kiss on the head, hoping it would get the point across if his words didn't.

He got up and left the ring after that. He could walk without stumbling over himself, because things hurt less somehow. Just a little. Just a tiny bit.


	8. Bounden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter can serve as an immediate fallout from chapter 7, or be about another scenario entirely. ^^
> 
> Every kudos I get on this work makes me so happy! A hearty thank you to everyone who has left some!

" _No_." The feeble growl was pressed out on a sharp draw back of his fist. The loud monitor outside the crowded locker room pulled Dean out of his wrong mind; time spent in it used to hammer his knuckles that were still taped up and throbbing into the duffle bag he had propped on a long bench. Soft but still firm; it was like he was hitting another person. That was exactly the kind of catharsis he needed right then, with the adrenaline still pumping within him and the actual, strenuous effects of the lost match having yet to put a damper on such a need.

But if he was only frustrated from the loss he just suffered, he was downright  _mad_ when he stormed out into the hall and saw Roman up on the screen, exactly where he left him in the ring to celebrate his championship win not five minutes ago, but...  _laid out_ , with the  _former_ Money in the Bank winner and  _new_ WWE World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus standing over him. The audience in a whir.

And it was too late. Dean couldn't help his brother now. He wasn't so sure he would have been of much help to Roman anyway, even if he knew in advance to run back out there; he was weak from two demanding tournament matches...

He wasn't even sure he would have  _wanted_ to help Roman, after-

 _Whoa whoa whoa. All right._ _I did_ not  _just think that._

He held his head and gave it a dizzied shake. There was nothing he could do about any of this. He opted to gather his things and leave for the hotel, stowing away his disappointment and discontent for the way the night went down to be dealt with in the morning, when he had a clearer head and rested bones.

...Naturally, when dawn broke hours later, he was still pissed. The painkillers wore off not long after he woke up, and he felt as if he was caught up in a perpetual spear. A phantom spear. Not just any spear, either; one of  _Roman's_ spears. His ribs were on fire. His jaw killed him.  _Irritable_ , was the word. He felt irritable.

After numbing the pain again, he headed out. Grabbed something off the breakfast buffet table set up downstairs and got a few sympathetic pats from familiar faces on his way back from it to sit down somewhere; he was too tired to swat them away.

He was up there a second time when someone he initially mistook for an impatient asshole buried a deep poke into the center of his back, nearly making him drop his plate.

Inches away from prodding a bruise. Either a lucky near miss, or...

"Hey," Roman spoke over his shoulder, somehow too close for Dean's liking. "Did I—? Oh."

Holy shit, he looked out of it.

"I'm sorry," the older said in addition, probably thinking he still managed to hit the bruise despite the effort expended to not.

"Don't- don't apologize. Jesus." Getting away from the table— from Roman, from everyone— was Dean's top priority all of a sudden. He grabbed two large muffins off a platter and snapped around, walking away without looking back. "You don't owe me jack. You startled me. I don't... wh- what've I done for you lately?"

He didn't think Roman even took anything. The Guy dashed after him with all the reckless abandon of a person who wasn't trying to balance food on a plate. Because, oh, he wasn't. But Dean was, so he had to walk slow. Nice.

"You put up one helluva fight last night. In both your matches. That's actually what I came to talk to you about." He butted up next to him. Dean fidgeted away.

"You wanna conspire? I was gonna come to you for that eventually, but just... leave a few more hours between..."

"No." In a burst of necessary alertness, Roman grabbed the plate away from Dean, not heeding his stern, " _Hey_ ," and breaking away from the narrow path without dropping any of the contents of it. He pushed open a glass door Dean hadn't noticed in passing with his free hand and motioned with a tilt of his head to be followed into the lit up room behind it. "I wanted to thank you. From the bottom of my heart."

Dean swallowed and rolled his shoulders. He complied after a moment, pulling open the twin door next to it. It was a small, windowless conference room. Lights were already on. The nearby table was where Roman set the stacked plates and topping muffins down.

"Thanks. For last night."

"You think I let you win?" The irritability was back.

"I'm not thanking you for the win." Roman's calmness was grounding. It always was. "Thanks," he said again, "for the match," he finished.

Dean made a face and turned away. He resolved to holding his wound fist against his cheek, foot tapping and flinty eyes darting around the bright room. He pressed two knuckles between his teeth as Roman kept on talking, unwavering: "We tore the house down."

"Mm." The younger took his knuckles out of his mouth to at leastagree with that. "We did."

"So, thanks again. I don't know what else to say." Despite the admittance of this, he still appeared to be thinking about it; pondering a 'what else' to top what he didn't think was good enough.

"Thank you for making me a better competitor? Definitely. Thank you for never changing 'n always havin' my back. Thank you for being you? Yeah. I appreciate it, man. I love you." He sounded a little foggy in his own right. Half-asleep. Still effective in all the worst ways.

Dean felt his face heating up. As a direct result of the barrage of "thank you"s, the blush wasn't the playfully needling, pleasantkind that trickled in when something kind of embarrassing but mostly petty was said by someone he didn't completely hate.

 _This_  blush was unpleasant and overwhelmed.

"Shut up. Hear me out a minute," he said, snappy as all hell. It was what he consciously chose to say instead of,  _'I love you too. I love you right back, so, so much.'_

Saying that to Roman would have made no sense; he already knew. But it also made no sense in regards to the circumstance, in that it hadn't  _at all_ been applicable when the two of them were in the ring the night before, ripping into each other for gold.

There was no room for love there. Maybe  _actually_ winning the gold and then promptly losing it to someone else was an instance in which the words were made easier to say. Was that how it worked?

Or, maybe, when all of the competitiveness was stripped away, they were just two dudes who loved to punch and be punched, and there could never be  _enough_  room for love in  _that_  department.

Dean was going with the latter explanation, if only to stay sane a little while longer.

"Listen, if I'd've won... I don't wanna say the same thing would'a happened to me..." As he went down another way, the warmth in his face receded and became tolerable again.

Roman shook his head slowly. He made a gentle, tired grab for Dean's wrist. Dean pulled the wrist in close to his chest, resisting the urge to glare.

" _One of us_  is gonna get that title again," he continued, raising his voice above the standard, moody drawl he had been using. "Might even be another race to get there..." Roman blearily steeled himself and held his gaze. "Regardless of which of the two of us it is, as long as it  _is_ one of us— no one else— it'll be where it belongs."

"Yessir." A weak smile touched Roman's lips, but only for the sentiment. It was put away fast.

The night before started out good. It didn't end the same way for either of them. But the following day was looking good so far. That was all they were capable of knowing.

 

* * *

 

" _PUumph_! Aaafff!" ...One month later, the breakable face Dean planted into the middle turn buckle sent a ripple through the ropes. He sprung out of the corner and staggered for his and his tag partners' adjacent one, slapping the hand of one of his comrades to tag out  _before_  allowing his limbs to crumble like brittle, baked dough underneath him. He rolled out to the floor and felt Roman's familiar touch on both of his shoulders before he hit down, patting and squeezing. Checking up.

"You good?" he asked. Old habits.

"Yeah," grunted Dean, feeling a sudden obligation to be on his feet; ready for any and all. Roman was there, so Dean needed to be there. Present mentally. "I'm with you, buddy. We're good."

"Yeah we are," Roman's deep voice rumbled through his arms. He bent down and deadlifted Dean around the waist— just enough to stand him up and prop him against the apron. For anyone unacquainted with the feeling of being carried like they were nothing, it would have been perturbing— at best. It should have been for Dean, but it wasn't; standard procedure by this point. He would do the same if the roles were reversed.  

The bell rung fast and frantically, indicating a disqualification. Roman looked over his shoulder to see what had happened, but Dean was too tired to care. He was far more concerned with guarding the flank his brother left wide open for attack. No arrangement between them ever contained a clause stating that a Hound's only means of protection was his own.

They got company quick. Dean should have been too weary to spin out the goon who rushed his brother, but he  _did_ ; tossed him— Del Rio, he recognized— into the barricade with an infuriated gritting of his teeth, heft meaning nothing to a body that would do absolutely anything necessary to ensure Roman had as little to worry about as possible.

He was still seething on the ramp, poised and trembling, and Roman moved on to partake in the scuffle on the outside, not thanking the younger for the protection because he hadn't seen. And that only meant Dean knew how to do his job very, very well.

Jericho— their third man for the match— was fished from the chaos down by the announce desks. Threatening to poke Corporate Kane's one blue eye with the end of the Kendo stick he refused to let go of. A bigger mess having been left in their wake than the immediate last, as per usual.

"Hey," Dean heard Roman say over his shoulder sometime later, reminding him vaguely of another instance in the past he couldn't quite place, "I'm buyin' beers tonight." A steady pat to his side followed the words, and by then Dean  _really_  couldn't remember, flashing a wild, kooky grin and butting his whole self into the comforting scratchiness of his brother's vest as they retreated up the ramp, adamant about matching his pace.

Roman Reigns was there, so Dean Ambrose was there. That was how they worked.


	9. Impasse

"Congratulations. It's well-earned."

A swell of pride coursed through Seth's chest and bled out into a tender smile as Triple H pulled him in by the hand. He reciprocated the friendly shoulder bump and back pat he gave, grinning winningly— because he  _had_ won; Superstar of the Year 2015 definitely  _sounded_ like a win.

Juggling a hug, a Slammy trophy, and two crutches was as tricky as it sounded. He was convinced he managed to do so with finesse to spare only because this was  _Hunter_ he was in the presence of, and extra work had no higher expense when he was doing it for him.

An exception to that  _did_ already come; in the form of the crutches he now needed, and couldn't walk at all without. If he could have gone back to prevent the injury from happening, he would have, but... he supposed an occurrence like this wasn't unheard of  _or_ unexpected for a guy carrying a whole company on his back.

"Don't dawdle on your way out," Hunter said to him, once he pulled back and every ounce of Seth's weight was on the crutches again. No absence of amiability in his voice; it sounded like the beginning of a joke.

"Hm?" Seth hummed, a tamer smile replacing the grin. "Why not?"

"If you stop and look around, it'll make you wanna jump right back into that ring on the spot." The joking tone was still there, notably not in mock but in an audible attempt to lighten the mood of the circumstance.

The prideful swell was transformed into a deep pang; one that had been there since the knee buckled but had a knack for coming and going like a tide. Seth almost didn't want to  _know_  where his head would be six months from then.

"I don't need to be here to wanna get back into that ring," he softly said.

"...I know." Hunter's smile was gone, stern eyes closely examining Seth. "And you will."

There was no doubt in the words. Just reassurance of such. There were also no more pleasantries after that. There was too much going on and no room for a man with a busted leg, and so Seth gathered what little he brought with him and made to leave, hating how narrow the halls felt.

He was leaning on a stretch of elevated tar wall for support while he stored away the Slammy. What slowed the process significantly was the sound of a door squealing somewhere behind him, making him pause. A glance down the listless hall adjacent to the exit showed a door left ajar, moving still from a recent push, but with no one on the other side of it.

The eeriness of it caused Seth to pack up faster, but you wouldn't hear him admitting that. These buildings were mysterious places given the right incentive for a person to be there, and he didn't leave the most benevolent mark prior to the roadblock he ran into.

He was impressed by the lack of people running up to ram him into a wall or stick him in the solar plexus with a chair. Hunter must have had words with quite a few people before the show started.

Freezing air touched his hands and face as he walked outside with the bag in tow, one limped step after the next. After leaving behind the light from the outer walls of the arena, he had no other light source to look out for but the distant one illuminating the parking lot. The moon was hidden by a thick blanket of clouds.

"Well done, man."

The low, familiar voice stopped him in his tracks. Lurking mere feet away, beside and behind him. Disembodied, initially, which added to Seth's instinctual need to turn fast... which would have been fine, if only he  _could_.

A different pang this time. A squirming, sickening  _rash_. Something that could be felt when you knew the eyes that were on you were ones that were all too acquainted with the sight of you, and the way you moved. Not a feeling he was unused to, for having a war with Dean Ambrose that lasted nigh five whole months.

But Dean Ambrose's raspy voice was one unwelcome thing, and Roman Reigns' soft-spoken one was another. No less unwelcome.

"Hey, Roman," he dryly said. An unavoidably sour note was encased in the greeting, and he didn't smile at the sight of his former brother leaning against the frozen railing of the stairs they  _both_ just descended, separately. No. 'Scowl' was a word better suited to describe the expression he wore.

He turned with some struggle. He wondered if his current, weakened state was more of an advantage than he gave it credit, considering Roman's aforementioned familiarity with the movements of a perfectly healthy Seth Rollins, and not a hurt one.

"Out here at a time like this?" he went on to ask, brows raising. "Why don't you head back inside? Go win a championship or something."

"I plan to," Roman stated. There was no friendly mirth in his voice, though, and while the earlier 'well done, man' held no trace of sarcasm, it also didn't hold the same warmth that Hunter's had. "Wanted to get a word in before you left. We're not gonna see each other for a while."

"No, we're not," Seth replied, coldly. With a lofty smirk and a tilt of his head up towards the dark, clouded-over sky, he continued, "Maybe that's the only upside. We may have excellent matches together, but I think it's pretty obvious we could never really stand each other."

"I must've missed the part where that was obvious," said Roman, with an unmistakable lilt of  _something_  that wasn't quite anger and wasn't quite smartassery. Something in the middle. "Whether we can stand each other or not, whether we have excellent matches together or crap matches together... regardless, I wanna see you get better."

"That's rich."  _He_  meant that sarcastically, but the wariness he felt couldn't help but add the obligatory,  _'"_ too _rich; the fuck?'_ safely in his mind, out of a zone of judgment. "Them's ain't even fightin' words, Reigns," he said instead, grinning harshly. An expression devoid of any happiness to be heard of. " _You_  can at least be glad I'm on the shelf. Makes  _your life_ a helluva lot easier."

"I'm not glad." Roman's voice was icy. Fending. "I'm hopin' we get you back as soon as possible. No later than that."

The way he said it was off-putting to Seth. Primarily the use of the word 'we'. He was fully intending on voicing the query, but it never got out; the space being filled by his adversary's irritatingly calm, collected voice: "The two of us— we got unfinished business with each other. It pisses me off that we can't take care of it now."

"Pisses me off, too. Believe me." Agreeing with the man made Seth feel ill.

"But I'll wait the six months. I'll be here." Roman drew nearer to him, looming and predatory. Close enough to inflict potentially irreparable damage in under five seconds if he so chose. "The first fight you'll run into when you get back will be the one  _I_  start," he firmly said, assured of it. He was but a step away now, and Seth realized his own resentment outweighed the apprehension that came with being threatened in the virtually helpless state he was in.

 _How hopeful._   _  
_

"Provided that rabid maniac you're still friends with doesn't finally come up with a scheme that even  _you_ can't get away unscathed from." He watched Roman's expression change from one of curt tolerance and low level frustration to the wide-eyed, unforgiving glower distinguishing a touched nerve, and  _still_ he didn't stop. "Better still: Dean doesn't go feral and gnaw off one of your legs. Best watch yourself, Roman."

It wasn't wise. It wasn't kind. Seth didn't know what he was expecting in terms of how Roman would react, but he knew what he'd been thinking: that he wanted to get this feeling Roman brought with him  _off his back_. He wanted the rash to fade. He wanted the squirming to stop. He just wanted the dumb shield to  _split_  already. How could something so badly cracked not already be done for?

It wasn't relief he felt when Roman drew back out of his space again. It certainly should have been, because the most careless of kicks and a thorough beating on the ground could have put him out for much longer than six months, and they both knew Roman wouldn't have broken a sweat doing it.

"Talk all you want about me," Reigns said, expelling puffs of visible breath into the chilly air. "Don't talk about Ambrose. You're not worth the used gauze he throws in the trash."

The cruel words were every bit the punch to the gut they were intended to be, but Seth wasn't sent reeling by them. His mouth fell agape, speechless... before he smiled, bitter amusement plain on his face.

"Is that right?"

Roman didn't answer, stalking back the way he came. Seth could hear his boots climbing the steps as he returned to the door.

"A little work plus time, Reigns; we'll see if that wishful fantasy of yours comes true."

"I'm counting on it. You should," Roman told him, last thing, before the sound of the door clicking shut again tipped Seth off to his absence— and his own reinstated feelings of lorn. This time, not without an everlasting streak of hope that didn't just ebb in and out, because he was just  _challenged_. Kicked in the ass in every sense except the physical.

Seth wore a smile on his long commute home. He had a lot to think about, and a lot to plan for.

 

* * *

 

_"Is this a Thing now? I get the sense this is some kind of a Thing, when it really doesn't need to be a Thing. Not anymore, at least."_

_"I'm countin' on it," Roman answered, slyly._

_"It's demoralizing. You're heavy, also." He really wasn't; not to Seth._

_"You're two-eighteen, Rollins; I'm two-sixty-five."_

_"I stand by my statement."_

_"Ah, man, cry me a river." His big brother clotheslined him to the floor— lovingly; the distance between it and his back was short, and the blue mat on the floor of the gym absorbed the impact well. Softer than a ring canvas. Seth hummed laughingly and grabbed hold of Roman's forearm, prying it up off him. It only forced its way back down, restricting without hurting. "I dunno what you're laughing at, Two-Tone."_

_"You. You're so... gentle."_

_His tag partner— reinforced by two bronze belts adorned with back-to-back galeae— scoffed in mock offense. "Says the guy who was just try'na get out of sparring with his tag team partner by callin' it 'demoralizing'. It's for the good of The Shield, Seth."_

_"We don't_ need _sparring anymore."  
_

_"Is that the reason why?" The challenge in question form spurred another soft huff, more indignant than amused. Roman, though, took it to signify the latter. "Still laughin'?" he asked, playfully heated. Promising retribution. "I'll give you a reason to laugh. All you had to do was ask, baby brother."  
_

_A rash. A **good**  rash. A squirming, giddy jump, and a skip of the heart. He didn't want to get away from it. Half of his whole world was there on the floor with him, flanging him down. Two-hundred sixty-five pounds he had no trouble lifting, and being lifted by._

The clear memory was banished with another crack of his booted foot against the wall he waited behind.

On the first day of May, 2016, Seth knew he was ready to go. The long wait until the 22nd had been the equivalent of half a month spent behind a starting gate, walking in place and throwing himself against the walls boxing him in— holding him back.

Now the day was upon him. The time. The moment. The split  _second_.

The crowd didn't react right away to the streak of black darting into the ring, but as soon as the pieces were fit together and the gravity of the situation hit, there was not a closed trap in the building. Seth turned his oh-so-vengeful nemesis around by the head and kicked him  _hard_. The WWE World Heavyweight Championship was dropped from Roman's weak grasp as Seth easily bound his arms and planted his unsuspecting ass with a Pedigree in the center of the ring, crashing his victory celebration— while the Universe bore witness, screaming their approval; welcoming him home, to his  _actual_ home.

The wave carried him. He was in hyperdrive. It should have felt like he was floating, but he had never felt more aware of the ground beneath his feet in all his life.

He circled back around to pick up the title, every bit the savage, growling Hound who refused to let go of the possession in his jaws, if only for one night. He walked slow around Reigns, who lied face-down with no strength left to rise. Seth stopped then, and lifted The Guy's belt overhead, sending the message out.

_Seth Rollins is back. **He**  plans for the day you get yours; not the other way around._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing the bit, "which added to Seth's instinctual need to turn fast", I accidentally wrote, "turn face", and I was like: LOL not yet!


	10. Dimmet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch edited 9/19/19: Pfff so like, my fun adventures in being dissatisfied with my writing _after_ it's posted continues. I edited around with this chapter and even rewrote a few bits of it. Same little beat-for-beat of events, but presented better than it was before, I think.

"Brock Lesnar. Her first pick was friggin' Brock  _Lesnar_! Not, I dunno," Dean hoisted up the championship, letting the gold plating and shiny studs glimmer in the truck garage light, "Dean Ambrose, the de facto captain of Everything, and a damn benevolent captain to boot. Now I gotta become the de facto captain of SmackDown Live? Why?"

He was pacing in front of Roman, up and down the truck ramp. Turning in herky jerky motions with audible swishes of leather and denim, the coveted belt dangling loosely from his fingers. Its proud owner never let it touch the ground. Not even the strap part.

"What's wrong with SmackDown Live?" asked Roman, quizzically.

"Aaaagh! Nothing. You know why I'm mad." Dean didn't stop pacing. Dude  _never_  stopped moving.

"It sounds like you're gonna be in good company," Roman said. He set his beer bottle up on the cement ledge above their heads, following his brother with his eyes. "I gotta stay back here."

"Am I diseased?" asked Dean, ignoring the older's words entirely and making him sigh.

Not being listened to? Fine. It wasn't like he ever had much to say anyway.

"If not being Brock Lesnar means you're diseased, then yeah, man, I guess you are." He couldn't keep the annoyance out of his voice that time. He turned away and stormed up the ramp until he was able to place both hands up on the ledge and pull himself up onto it, sitting down. Facing away. His silence wasn't seized as an opportunity by Ambrose to rant more; the younger gazed up at him long and hard (Roman could see, just barely out of the corner of his eye) before expelling some breath and grabbing the beer he set down.

"Sorry," he apologized, brusque. His voice was still harsh; it didn't  _sound_ like an apology. But Roman knew he meant it. Dean followed after him and placed the bottle down closer to him so he didn't have to get up for it. "I'm not yellin' at you. I'm wound up. I'm a little outraged.  _Insulted_."

"I wish I knew what to say. I don't."

"Well that didn't stop you from tryin', uce," answered Dean, more amiably. His suddenly-grinning teeth flashed in the light as he pulled himself up to sit beside Roman, swinging his legs and laying the title belt across his lap. Running his hands over it. Admiring it. "Really, I shouldn't be complaining. Look at me here. What've I got to complain about?"

"Oh, boy," grunted Roman, fixing his eyes on the ramp below as he thought about it. "You'll think of something, won't you?"

"No, shut up," he laughed the words, elbowing Roman. Not hard. Padded by the thick sleeve of his jacket. "I'm not talkin' about the stupid shit."

"I've gotta deal with the stupid, petty shit more than the worthwhile shit. 'Direct all complaints to Roman Reigns'," he mimicked some unspecific, whiny voice. Quiet, under the distant din of an active highway at night. Crickets chirped somewhere near. Dean nudged him again, but said nothing. They ground to comfortable silence as they sat there together, enjoying each other's presence.

It must have been a hot topic, if what Dean said next tipped off anything.

"So this is our last night together," he commented, not entirely out of the blue, "'least for awhile."

"Yeah." Roman felt mixed about it. It wasn't like they were saying  _goodbye_ to each other for the long term— or even the short. But nights like the one they were presently soaking up would be few and far between for them from then on, probably. Traveling in different directions. Being on rival brands. That last one was the least of Roman's worries.

His boy wouldn't be riding with him anymore, and let it be known: Roman loved his boy. To death. He couldn't imagine a life on the road, a life in _general_ , without him.

"Our thing is drinking beer together, right? How 'bout you give your departing buddy the rest of yours? Then we can say that's technically what we did the last time we hung out."

"Our thing is drinking beer together?" Roman echoed, bemused. He seized the bottle by the neck before Dean could grab it again, holding it away from him. "Is that the legacy we left? That's ass, Dean."

"How is it ass? We're responsible. We don't do anything stupid." He left a small break. "Anymore," he added, flatly. "We've matured. We deserve nice things. Like  _me_ , who's getting kicked off the Raw brand indefinitely for who-knows-what-reason. I really need- Ro- Roman, are you seriously—? You're holding it away. Stop that. How much do you think I'm gonna have?" He was reaching well over his best friend's lap, fingertips inches from the glass.

"Fuck off. That's how much."

"'Fuck off' isn't an actual amount, 'm'afraid." He slowly retracted the outstretched arm, pulling it back in. "Also, guess what happens now. Take a wild guess."

He tore the belt off his lap and set it neatly beside him before getting down low and springing at his old stablemate, barreling into him. Fatigued muscles hardly clenched for the impact; the sky was straight-on in seconds for Roman, who smiled vibrantly before he hit down and Dean hovered overhead.

"Oooogh! I'm hit!" he cried out in fake agony. The grin he received for it was priceless, and there was nothing Dean could ever do to take that satisfaction away from him. Not even-

"No! HAha! Aaaagh, Dean, man-! Please-!"

In hindsight, he  _definitely_  should have recognized the glint in the younger man's eyes. It literally meant nothing else.

Dean's fingers were buried, unstill, in his ribs. Poking and squeezing at the weak points nearing his back, almost under his arms but not quite. Making him writhe and chuckle, trying to avoid getting loud. He was helplessly rooted where he was since his arms couldn't be pried off his sides to aid in pulling himself backwards and away. Being stuck in defense mode wasn't ideal.

"Hhhuum, what was that?" asked Dean, not stopping. "Is this what happens to people who patronize their champions? They get tickled 'til they can't think straight no more? Hound Rules, Roman. Very important. I thought you knew this stuff already."

"Someone might hear!" It was a weak argument; Dean would never do this if he wasn't completely sure they were alone. The scruffy dude gave his poor ribs a break after the concern was voiced, anyway. Even through the hoodie Roman wore, Dean had known exactly what kind of pressure to apply.

...So no effort was required at  _all_  when he started for Roman's neck and jaw. His hairline, his nape, his collarbone; it wasn't the most calming of experiences. Roman was pretty sure his match earlier in the night inspired better feelings of zen. He rolled onto his side through his fidgeting, trying to block out Dean's chilled hands with his shrugged shoulder and tilted head. Cold skin on warm made it  _worse_. His laughter rushed out of him in short bursts, noisier than the previous sounds he had been making.

Dean's smile was entirely nerve-racked. "If I stop, you're gonna come after me."

"Promise I won't!" Roman yelped. The bottle was pulled out of his grasp with little difficulty, but all Dean did with it was set it down a safe distance away before happily resuming with clear mirth in his eyes. Laughing right along with him.

Roman couldn't bring himself to wait for Dean to stop on his own and consequently reached up, pushing out at his little brother's chest. He couldn't get him back through the leather, though, so he went higher and swiped a few fingers across  _Dean's_  exposed neck, purely in self-defense. It didn't yield the desired response until he kept at it awhile. He knew it worked when Dean stopped the attack and curled away from it with a tight grin, retreating off him.

Roman didn't give chase. He lied there a moment, getting his breath back.

"You're a snot, Ambrose." The lungfuls of air were released one right after the other and gratefully replaced. A smile transformed his face, far less coerced but by no means unrelated to the attack.

Dean's chuckle made him look up. The brawler was sitting not a foot away, knees bent in front of him and wrists propped on top of them, hands clasped between them, still with that relentless, boyish grin on his face. Hair all feathery and messy. Roman wanted to tousle it bad.

He resolved to scooting up just a bit so they were sitting side-by-side again. He snatched the folded-up belt on the way and gently pushed it into Dean's waiting hands and chest— and then more roughly used it to force Dean onto his back, never taking his hands off the plating.

Nothing was as pleasing to the ear as Dean's nervous laugh and jittery, "You  _promised_! C'mon!" when Roman shifted his weight over on top of his torso, holding him down.

Were they back at it again? Roman didn't know. He didn't think so.

"You can't have it, Dean," he said, in unclear referral to the beer. Dean uttered a dazed, "'Uh?" from his pinned state on the ground before following it up with a much more rapt, "Oh. Shit, man, I don't want it."

"...Oh no?" Roman's lips quirked up at the corners, yet again imperceptibly. He was going to question him about the previous goading and what the purpose of it was, but then realized he knew exactly why it happened: for the same reason it happened any  _other_  time.

"Nah. Finish it. I want this to be a pleasant memory, filled with... whole beers that you don't need to share, and..." He trailed off listlessly. Roman's eyelids were getting heavy just looking at him, but he couldn't resist reaching out; touching the man's face. A certain thing about it he neglected to notice up until right then.

"You growin' a beard?"

"Hmhmhm. Heey, stop- ha!" Dean's barely-parted lips pulled into another grin, both hands leaving the title to reach for his face. "Stop it," he complained, smacking at the wandering, trailing hands that purposely tickled under his jaw and chin, scraping new stubble on the way. His chin met his chest soon after, guarding. "Stop tickling. You promised," he reminded him again, with very little heat.

"It looks good. Or it will, probably."

"I'm  _very_ handsome," Dean agreeably said.

"Not arguing against that. But really, I want to, and I'd rather not talk about... that."

"Let's talk about beer," the younger brightly said, voice as gruff as ever. There was no sincerity in it, though. "'Cause our thing is drinking beer together," he said it again, with an odd lilt; with an air of drawing attention to it without having to strengthen a single word.

Roman nodded, feigning seriousness.

"Never said it wasn't," he replied, all innocent-like.

He got no other answer but a soft sigh from Ambrose, and the man in question baring his neck again to stare up at the open sky above them— like they  _weren't_  actually in the middle of a major city with not much to see in the way of stars. Roman rested his face on his arm, eyes flickering shut, and the impromptu lounge pile on the asphalt continued for a few minutes more with a thin haze of gold light from the title picking through his eyelashes.


End file.
